UMD Smith Launches Dashboard to Analyze Natural Hazard Risk to Bank Branches

Newswise — The Smith Enterprise Risk Consortium (SERC) at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business has launched a Natural Hazard Bank Branch Analyzer in another educational project involving Master of Finance students. This interactive dashboard is designed for banks—whether large institutions like JPMorgan Chase or small community banks—to understand how natural disasters such as floods, storms or heatwaves could affect their assets and branch locations.

“The tool has direct utility to bankers, regulators and other interested parties in assessing the risk to secured assets,” says Professor of the Practice and SERC Director Clifford Rossi.

The new tool complements SERC’s recently established Mortgage Natural Hazard Analyzer. “Whereas the latter allows a user to see how various natural hazards impact mortgages across the country, the new, branch analyzer enables a user, in this case a banker, to examine the impact of those same hazards for mortgages and other secured asset types for each of their branches and in aggregate for the bank,” says Rossi, who developed both tools along with Smith graduate finance students.

The dashboard merges the FDIC’s Branch Office Deposits data for nearly 80,000 branches with FDIC Bank Call Report Data (a comprehensive, quarterly financial snapshot of balance sheets, income statements and other detailed schedules of assets, liabilities, income and expenses) on secured assets. The platform further incorporates FEMA’s National Risk Index data on 18 natural hazards, including earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes, and coastal and river flooding.

Rossi, with 25 years in banking risk management, has testified before Congress about the impact of climate hazards on finance. He has warned that current models are weak, urged for better data collection, and supports resilience measures. Regarding the new bank branch analyzer, he says special credit goes to SERC Research Assistant  Pranshu Sahasrabuddhe (Master of Finance ’25), as the tool emanated from his independent study project.

Sahasrabuddhe, with Nilay Somani (MS in Information Systems ’25), also spearheaded the October 2025-activated mortgage analyzer. Both dashboards can be traced to Rossi leading his students in an experiential learning project for Freddie Mac. “Senior leaders at Freddie Mac were impressed with the extent and complexity of the students’ analysis, and their ability to explain difficult concepts, calling the presentation better than some by employees and consultants,” Rossi says.

Go to the Natural Hazard Bank Branch Analyzer homepage.