1 Palestine Pound 1939 Obverse. Wikicommons. Public domain.‘De-risking’ is shorthand for business practices designed to make something – an activity or an investment portfolio, for example – less risky and, crucially, less likely to involve a financial loss.
Over the past few years ‘de-risking’ has taken on a more specific meaning within the banking and financial services sector where it is used to describe the practice of financial institutions exiting relationships with and closing the accounts of clients considered ‘high risk’.
This kind of de-risking effects different organisations in different ways and its impact varies geographically; but correspondent banking relationships, where a large financial institution provides international financial services to a smaller one, appear to have been hit hardest.
