UK regulators want banks to offer resilience brilliance
The Bank of England, Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) are calling on banks and firms to up their A-game and give feedback on operational resilience.
You can do it
As they often do, the trio have published a joint discussion paper (DP) on an approach to improve the strength of firms and financial market infrastructures (FMIs).
It envisages that boards and senior management can achieve better standards and an “increased focus on setting, monitoring and testing specific impact tolerances for key business services, which define the amount of disruption that could be tolerated”.
Naturally, the trio are far too polite and cunning to name names, but one recent example – which you probably all know – was the TSB tech trauma in April. For over five days customers could not bank remotely and reported multiple problems with their accounts and transactions.
It’s not just about changing core banking systems of course.
The FCA says: “The challenges for operational resilience have become even more demanding given a hostile cyber-environment and large scale technological changes.
“As recent disruptive events illustrate, operational resilience is a vital part of protecting the UK’s financial system, institutions and consumers.”
Only seven days ago, the BoE released a new report which highlights the geopolitics and cybersecurity risks to the UK’s financial stability.
The trio add that they are encouraging responses to questions posed in the DP from all types of firms and FMIs, trade associations, consumer bodies, individuals and businesses as users of financial services, and especially those who have suffered harm from disruptive events.
The discussion period ends on 5 October 2018.
You can read the DP here.
