Market risk tends to be extreme in its development and violent in its impact. This study gives consideration to the case study of banks in India in optimising the value-at-risk (VaR) model in emerging markets believing that the case study of these banks is not just the story of individual banks but a window into the structural issues of the entire market risk models in emerging markets. This study uses the parametric method to optimise the value-at-risk model based on probabilities and mathematical expectations to adequately quantify the expected worst-case loss that a financial institution may sustain under normal market conditions, at a predefined confidence level, over a given time horizon and for a given asset portfolio after taking into consideration the expected recovery rate of assets. The recommendations set out in this study provide emerging markets with an optimised estimation of the value-at-risk model to adequately quantify market risk. Copyright © 2019 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.