PRMIA ORM study guide
PRMIA ORM · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Operational Risk Management (ORM) Certificate is one of PRMIA's assessment-based certificate programs, listed on PRMIA's Certificates menu alongside the Associate PRM, Credit & Counterparty Risk Management, Market, Liquidity & ALM Risk Management, Cyber Risk Management, and AI Risk Management certificates. PRMIA describes it as covering topics important to the operational and/or enterprise risk manager role, including operational resilience, risk management frameworks, climate risk, risk governance, compliance risk, and more. The PRMIA ORM study guide has 5 sections and about 1,512 words.
01Operational Resilience
Operational resilience is a firm's ability to prevent, adapt to, respond to, recover from, and learn from disruptions so that important business services continue within impact tolerances. The exam tests the distinction from business continuity, service identification, impact tolerances, dependency mapping, scenario testing, and governance of remediation.
305 words, about 2 min02Risk Management Frameworks
The risk management frameworks domain tests how a firm organises risk identification, assessment, control, monitoring, and reporting: the risk operating model, taxonomy, appetite, RCSA, KRIs, loss data, and capital. ISO 31000:2018 and COSO ERM 2017 provide principles; Basel's Principles for the Sound Management of Operational Risk (2021) set expectations for governance, risk appetite, taxonomy, and reporting.
328 words, about 2 min03Climate Risk
Climate risk tests how physical and transition risks transmit into prudential and operational risks, and how firms govern, measure, scenario-test, and disclose them. Physical risk is acute (flood, wildfire, hurricane) or chronic (heat, sea-level rise).
300 words, about 2 min04Risk Governance
Risk governance tests board and senior management accountability, committee structure, risk appetite oversight, the CRO's independence, escalation, and risk culture. Basel's Corporate Governance Principles for Banks (2015) require the board to approve risk appetite, oversee risk, ensure an independent risk function and CRO, and align compensation with risk.
287 words, about 1 min05Compliance Risk
Compliance risk is the risk of legal or regulatory sanctions, financial loss, or reputational damage from failing to comply with laws, regulations, and standards. The exam tests the compliance framework, risk assessment, monitoring and testing, regulatory change, conduct, and breach management.
292 words, about 1 min