Impacting an entire system.

In connection with the financial crisis, commentators often referred to the importance of dealing with systemic risk. This is the risk that the entire financial system will collapse or cease to operate efficiently, as opposed to the risk of failure of one financial institution. Systemic risk is the result of the interdependencies of financial institutions in the market, so that the failure of one could result in the failure of others and ultimately bring down the whole financial system.