While value-at-risk models - which measure overnight risk in trading books - have stolen the limelight from an investor relations and regulatory standpoint, banks have quietly been getting on with the business of managing their credit exposure.

Once the backwater of risk management, these teams are set to become even more important following proposals made by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision that have been dubbed "Basel III". JP Morgan created VaR as an overnight risk measure for trading books in the 1980s.