Bank of England Industry Operational & Cyber Resilience Report

The Bank of England and the Financial Policy Committee (FPC) has for some time been focused on end-to-end Operational Resilience.

The Bank of England and the Financial Policy Committee (FPC) has for some time been focused on end-to-end Operational Resilience.

Cyber Security has become an increasingly central area of focus for business over the last decade. However, never before has the threat of data breaches and IP theft been more relevant.

TORI commissioned research to examine trends in Operational Resilience within financial services organisations Smart Paper looks at the approach that Financial Institutions are taking with regard to Operational Resilience, with a focus on readiness for the soon-to-be-introduced regulation and the impact of the recent pandemic on strategy as it relates to Operational Resilience.

There are a number of slightly different definitions of resilience: from “the property of a material that enables it to resume its original shape or position after being bent, stretched, or compressed”, to “the ability to be happy or successful, after something difficult or bad has happened”.

Operational Resilience is evolving beyond simply being able to evidence the recovery of a system out-of-hours in a controlled Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity test scenario.

As lockdown rules are eased and plans are being drawn up for a return to work, the focus has very much shifted from Business Continuity Planning (BCP) execution and crisis management to re-baselining plans for H2 and moving forward with the business agenda.

The impending application of the Guidelines on Outsourcing from the European Banking Authority (EBA) reflects a growing focus on the potential impacts Third Parties can have on the resilience of an organisation, and with good reason.

COVID-19 has quickly established itself as the watershed event forcing many organisations to rethink their Target Operating and Supply Chain models.

Operational Resilience enhances risk management capabilities to ensure a business can continue to effectively operate in the face of a crisis.

In these unprecedented times, firms are having to deliver BAU activities while operating contingency arrangements. Business Continuity Plans (BCP) have historically been developed in silos at a functional level or at best for a specific Line of Business.