About the Course

Pension funds are exposed to a broad range of interconnected risks. Investment losses, weak controls, contribution arrears, cyber incidents, fraud, service-provider failures, regulatory breaches or inaccurate member data can all undermine member outcomes and institutional credibility. A mature pension institution therefore needs an enterprise-wide risk framework that identifies both financial and non-financial risks and links them to clear ownership, controls, monitoring and escalation.

This course provides a structured approach to pension risk management. Participants learn how to establish risk governance, define risk appetite, build meaningful risk registers, assess inherent and residual risk, evaluate controls, develop key risk indicators and strengthen business continuity. The programme is designed to help pension institutions move from reactive risk reporting toward proactive risk-based decision-making and can be tailored to the organization’s existing enterprise risk management framework.

Beyond identifying individual risks, the programme emphasizes the need to understand risk interdependencies and translate them into clear management actions. Participants will consider how risk appetite, control assurance, incident information and key risk indicators can be integrated into governance and reporting so that emerging threats are escalated early and boards receive decision-useful information rather than purely compliance-oriented risk reports.

Target Participants

Pension fund managers, trustees, risk officers, internal auditors, compliance officers, finance professionals, investment officers, scheme administrators, board committee members and regulators.

Course Duration

• Classroom – 10 Days
• Online – 14 Days

Course Objectives

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Establish an enterprise risk framework for a pension institution.
• Define risk appetite and risk ownership.
• Identify financial and operational pension risks.
• Assess inherent risk, control effectiveness and residual risk.
• Develop practical risk registers and key risk indicators.
• Develop measures to strengthen third-party and technology risk oversight.
• Design improvements to business continuity and incident preparedness.
• Produce concise risk reports for management and boards.

Course Content

Pension Risk Landscape

• Strategic and financial risks
• Operational and compliance risks
• Technology and data risks
• Emerging pension-sector risks
• Emerging pension risk scanning and horizon monitoring

Pension Risk Governance

• Board and management responsibilities
• Risk committees
• Three-lines model
• Risk ownership and escalation
• Governance effectiveness indicators and periodic review

Investment Risk Appetite

• Risk appetite statements
• Risk tolerance limits
• Risk capacity
• Link to strategy and decision-making
• Risk limits, breaches and escalation procedures

Pension Risk Assessment

• Risk identification techniques
• Likelihood and impact assessment
• Inherent versus residual risk
• Control effectiveness evaluation
• Risk scoring methodology and prioritization criteria

Pension Investment Risk

• Market and credit risk
• Liquidity and concentration risk
• Counterparty risk
• Investment risk limits
• Risk limits, breaches and escalation procedures

Operational Risk

• Process failures
• People risk
• Data quality risk
• Operational loss events
• Risk and control self-assessment for pension operations

Third-Party Risk

• Administrators and custodians
• Asset managers and advisers
• Due diligence
• Service-provider monitoring
• Provider concentration risk and resilience expectations

Technology Risk

• System resilience
• Cyber risk
• Access control
• Technology change risk
• Technology control testing and remediation tracking

Risk Monitoring

• Risk registers
• Key risk indicators
• Risk dashboards
• Management and board reporting
• Key risk indicators and escalation thresholds

Business Continuity

• Business impact analysis
• Continuity planning
• Crisis response
• Testing and post-incident learning
• Recovery testing, lessons learned and plan improvement

Funding Risk

• Funding ratio volatility
• Actuarial assumption risk
• Contribution adequacy risk
• Sponsor covenant considerations
• Funding recovery strategies

Liquidity Risk

• Benefit-payment liquidity needs
• Liquidity sources and buffers
• Illiquid asset concentration
• Liquidity stress scenarios
• Liquidity contingency planning

Fraud Risk

• Fraud risk typologies in pension funds
• Control vulnerabilities across the fund lifecycle
• Fraud indicators and red flags
• Fraud prevention control design
• Fraud response and escalation

Compliance Risk

• Regulatory obligation mapping
• Compliance risk assessment
• Regulatory breach escalation
• Compliance monitoring evidence
• Regulatory change risk

Risk Reporting Assurance

• Risk reporting architecture
• KRI dashboards and thresholds
• Risk committee reporting
• Control assurance and testing
• Risk remediation tracking

Practical Outputs

• Pension risk taxonomy
• Enterprise risk register
• Risk appetite statement
• Key risk indicator dashboard
• Business continuity improvement plan
• Risk treatment action plan

Training Approach

Participants build or refine a pension risk register, evaluate sample control failures, design key risk indicators and work through incident scenarios. The programme can incorporate the client’s existing risk framework to make the outputs immediately usable. Participants progressively build a pension risk register, risk appetite measures and a KRI dashboard, then test controls through scenario and continuity exercises.

Organizational Benefits

• A clearer enterprise view of material pension risks
• More consistent risk assessment, ownership and treatment
• Better-defined risk appetite and escalation thresholds
• Stronger monitoring through KRIs and risk reporting
• Improved resilience through business continuity planning
• More effective assurance and remediation of control weaknesses

Certification

Participants who successfully complete this course will receive a Certificate of Course Completion from Devimpact Institute, recognizing the knowledge, practical skills and competencies developed through the programme.

Customization Options

This course can be customized and delivered as an in-house programme to address the specific policies, systems, sector context and capacity-development priorities of an organization. The course duration, modules, case studies and practical exercises may be adjusted following a training needs assessment.