Third party

Material risk in focus - May 2026

Third Party was again the second most highly-ranked risk in the H1 2026 Top Risk Review.

Third Party risk materiality scores have increased moderately, with many respondents highlighting growing concerns around supply chain disruption and supplier outages arising from ongoing geopolitical turbulence.

Ranked second in the Top Risk Review, this risk remains a critical area of focus. Reliance on third and nth parties has grown over the last 5-10 years, expanding the level of risk exposure that sits outside firms’ direct control and line of sight. Many incidents involving third parties, such as cyber losses, are often recorded under other risk categories within ORX’s loss and news data, which can obscure the true extent of third party exposure when looking at loss data by risk category. You can read more about losses flagged as being related to third party in this article: The power of a common language: Integrating the ORX Reference Taxonomy into loss data

Despite the high level of concern reflected in the Top Risk Review H1 2026, findings from the Third Party Risk Management Project indicate that significant uplift programmes are currently underway to strengthen and mature third party risk management capabilities. This is also reflected in the effectiveness of risk management score, which continues to increase.