UK Tripartite Authorities publish ‘Financial Sector Business Continuity Annual Report’

The UK Tripartite financial authorities have published an annual report into business continuity work carried out in the year since October 2004. This is part of the authorities' overall work to improve the resilience of UK financial markets. 

Amongst other things the report highlights:

• The establishment of the Cross Market Business Continuity Group (CMBCG) as a high-level committee to help ensure co-ordination across financial markets and between the public sector and market participants in the event of major operational disruption (MOD).
• The Tripartite Authorities have more clearly defined how they would operate in the event of MOD, with the process to be described in the run-up to the November 2005 Market-wide Exercise.
• Substantial progress has been made in the formulation of an internationally agreed set of business continuity principles.

The report also warns against complacency following the success in keeping financial markets operating during the July 7th terrorist attacks. The report states that: “The events of 7 July were a stark reminder of the threat of terrorist activity and its potential to disrupt financial markets. The financial sector stood up well on that day but we must avoid complacency. The attack was not aimed at, nor did it have a major impact upon, the financial services sector and, as a result, it did not test financial stability. We cannot count on any future attack having such a limited impact on the sector.”

The main projects of the Tripartite Authorities in 2005 have been the Resilience Benchmarking Project and preparation for the Market-wide Exercise in November.

•Date: 2nd Nov 2005 • Region: UK • Type: Article •Topic: Financial sector BC
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