The recent financial crisis has heightened awareness of the importance of effective risk management for financial companies. Well-functioning risk management systems, as well as appropriate monitoring and control procedures to rein in managers` excessive risk taking, have become essential. Proposals from various international institutions and regulatory authorities are now either recommending or requiring that risk management systems be tightened to improve the risk governance of financial companies. Risk governance encompasses both the company`s risk management structure, as well as the overall processes determining a company`s risk taking strategy and decision making. Risk governance therefore entails a wide range of risk management components related to corporate governance: the organizational structure of risk management, the role of risk management functions and of the chief risk officer (CRO), and the risk governance duties of the board of directors and the risk committee. In this report, we evaluate the risk governance of domestic banks and bank holding companies in Korea, focusing on the problems of risk committee management and the role of CROs. We offer several implications and policy recommendations. Namely, we suggest that the risk governance duty of the board of directors should be more clearly defined and that the risk management-relevant expertise of the risk committee must be improved. We also suggest that every bank should appoint a CRO who directly reports to the board of directors, and that the independence and role of the CRO should be strengthened, including enhanced guarantee of the CRO tenure and the appointment of CRO by the board or shareholders.