Paul de Fries, group risk manager, Noble Group

Paul de Fries is group risk manager of Noble Group. He began his career at the IPE, was a derivatives trader with Hull, and later joined ING Bank. He was head trader at Macquarie Bank before joining Noble in 2001

What do you regard as the most significant development in risk management?

Personally, I think it is the increase in computer processing power. Supercomputers did exist ten years ago, but they were not, generally speaking, commercially available. Today, everyone has a computer on their desk capable of computing real-time VAR exposures. This in turn makes people more comfortable with VAR as a concept, especially now that VAR is tracked real time.

Five or ten years ago, risk management was something