A system and method are provided for distributed risk management. According to one example embodiment, a central risk controller is provided that can communicate with a plurality of local risk management modules located at a plurality of gateways. The central risk controller may allocate a portion of a central account balance associated with a trading account to each local risk management module. Then, as the trades are made using the trading account, the local risk management modules may manage risk associated with the trades until the local account balance is insufficient. As the account balance gets low, the local risk management module may query the central risk controller for the additional risk account balance.