European finance now operates under a dense web of intersecting rules. While these safeguards have reduced formal weaknesses, they often undercut strategic capacity, immobilize capital, and promote a tick-box mindset. This book argues that the problem is not the volume of regulations, but rather the absence of a shared language of risk. Treating risk as an external constraint renders institutions compliant yet fragile.

Drawing on the author's background in banking, payments, and fintech—including CTO/CIO and board-level roles with responsibility for technology strategy, operational resilience, payment systems, and supervisory engagement—and research on risk-based performance indicators, the book blends practice and research. It offers a governance-centered framework that translates regulatory duties into risk-based decision-making and metrics, differentiates banks from nonbanks, and integrates technology and third-party exposure.

Reframing supervision as a relational process built on proportionality, trust, and risk ownership, this book will appeal to readers interested in how financial risk governance shapes institutions, supervision, and society.

Olegs Cernisevs is a European practitioner-scholar who specializes in risk governance, financial regulation, and institutional resilience. He has over 25 years of experience in banking, payments, and financial technology. Cernisevs has served in senior executive and board-level roles, including Chief Technology Officer, Chief Information Officer, legal representative, and branch head, within regulated institutions. He has been responsible for technology strategy, operational resilience, payment systems, card-issuing infrastructure, third-party management, and supervisory engagement across multiple EU jurisdictions. Cernisevs holds a Ph.D. in economics with a focus on risk-based performance measurement and has published extensively on financial governance and fintech risk. He has contributed to industry policy dialogue, chaired professional bodies, and founded a national organization within Europe’s risk governance network.