With risks becoming more intertwined, there’s seemingly no shortage of ways for companies to lose large sums of money.

So investing in enterprise risk management to help prevent or manage the catastrophic risks lurking in the shadows must be a no-brainer. But of course it isn’t. After all, risk management doesn’t directly generate profit—it identifies losses that may or may not happen and uses finite company resources to protect against them.

Making a financial case for an ERM program, then, isn’t so easy, even if you’re the CFO advocating for ERM to the board, CEO, or the rest of the C-suite. And if you’re the CFO weighing an allocation for ERM, well, that can be difficult, too, if you’re focused on the wrong measures.

Making it real. ERM leaders or other advocates must quantify the risks they’re tracking to show any tangible results from managing them, according to a panel of experts who spoke at Riskworld in early May.

Jason Venner, solution sales director at GRC software developer Diligent, recommended linking ERM programs to a handful of specific metrics that show the program’s financial return.

“Your ERM program, you can then say, has these three, or four, or five things that we’re tracking…to ensure that that outcome is happening,” he said.

But it’s got to be a team effort—here’s why.—AZ

Stablecoins are catching on. Legislation is creating regulatory clarity—the Treasury Department and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency are busy crafting rules following passage of last year’s Genius Act, while the Clarity Act is gaining traction in Congress. Meanwhile, payments giants like Mastercard and PayPal are making big bets on the digital asset.

Executives of numerous payments companies shared their stablecoin strategies and laid out budding use cases in recent earnings calls.

The regulatory movement and major investments “taken together describe a structural shift, the size of which leaves room for everyone to play,” Akshay Naheta, CEO of digital-assets platform Bakkt, told investors on a May 11 earnings call.

To be sure, these executives want to put their stablecoin initiatives in the best possible framing. CFO Brew previously detailed stablecoins’ inherent risks; experts advised companies to use caution before proceeding. But some finance leaders sound ready to go into them whole hog.

“As a corporate CFO, and I talk to a lot of CFOs out there, we all know the benefits of stablecoins and stablecoin rails, and we’re all looking forward to a world when we can easily use these and when they’re integrated into our existing systems and control infrastructure,” Jeremy Fox-Geen, CFO of digital asset firm Circle, posited on a May 11 earnings call.

Let’s hear what Western Union’s CEO has to say about the company’s new stablecoin.—AZ

It’s been just over 11 weeks since the Strait of Hormuz closed, and the global oil market has been holding up reasonably well. But JPMorgan analysts warn that this relative stability could soon be coming to an end.

In a recent note, analysts described the “illusion of plenty,” or the belief that the world’s stored oil surplus will continue to cushion the blow from the Middle East for the foreseeable future. They estimate there were 8.4 billion barrels of oil inventory stored around the world at the beginning of the year, which sounds like a lot—but the truth is, only about 10% is accessible to shore up the market during an emergency.

The rest is tied up in various ways, including pipeline fill (pipelines have to be full in order to function, but this oil isn’t in storage), and tank bottoms (the residual sludge that accrues at the bottom of storage tanks, making them appear fuller than they are). There’s also a good chunk (about 4 billion barrels) tucked away in strategic reserves, but governments won’t touch those until the most dire circumstances dictate it.

Is the global oil inventory safety net fraying? Keep reading on Brew Markets.—MR

If you’re feeling uncertain about the macro finance environment (regulation, talent, competition, tech/AI) and uncertain a the data needed to operate in said macro environment, join CFO Brew and Workiva for a candid chat.

We’ll talk about cross-C-suite alignment and the necessary trust and clarity that can be gained from unified data and embedded, governed AI. Register here.

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• Director of Accounting at U.S. Physical Therapy
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• Vice President of Finance and CFO at Carnegie Mellon University
• Director and Professor School of Accounting at Florida Atlantic University
• Associate VP Finance, PSDS Group at AeroVironment