US securities industry plans large scale business continuity test

On October 15th, 2005, securities industry firms based in the United States will take part in a coordinated business continuity test, designed to exercise and verify the ability of firms, markets and utilities to operate through an emergency using backup sites, recovery facilities and backup communications capabilities.

The Securities Industry Association (SIA), The Bond Market Association (TBMA) and the Futures Industry Association (FIA) in coordination with Depository Trust and Clearing Corp. (DTCC), Securities Industry Automation Corp. (SIAC) and other organisations, will lead the business continuity test.

Termed a ‘Phase 2’ business continuity test by the organising bodies, the October 15 th activities will supplement ‘Phase 1’ connectivity tests that have been conducted over the two past years and will include components for equities, fixed income, options, futures and settlement.

The test will not simulate an outage in any specific geographic area. Instead, all firms will connect simultaneously from their backup business and technology sites to the markets and industry utilities.  Firms will transmit dummy orders to markets and receive simulated execution reports and will conduct certain interactions with DTCC.

For more information about the business continuity test see http://www.sia.com/business_continuity/html/testing.html

•Date: 19th July 2005 • Region: US • Type: Article •Topic: BC testing and exercising
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