Bank of America Merrill Lynch has appointed David Oman as chief risk officer for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, starting from the beginning of October. He will be based in London and report to Marisa Harney, head of International Risk Strategy Development.

Additionally, Oman will oversee counterparty risk and will report to Bruce Thompson, CRO at Bank of America, in this capacity.

Oman joins Bank of America Merrill Lynch from UBS, where he most recently served as European chief risk officer and global head of counterparty credit risk.

The current EMEA CRO, Price Sloan, will remain in this role until later this year when he will relocate from London to New York to assume the role of International Operational Risk executive.

The role of risk management has become ever more critical in view of the recent financial crisis, which highlighted the extent to which some banks did not seem fully aware of the risks posed to their health from highly leveraged market exposures in sectors such as sub-prime debt.