Bank Disaster Recovery Planning

Business continuity planning is critical for all businesses facing disruptions. Disaster recovery plans for banks must always take into account regional disasters, and possible staff inaccessibility and losses. Disaster recovery planning services are useful in the case of pandemics, such as epidemic-prone diseases like Ebola, influenza, and SARS, which affected several countries. Such outbreaks not only have an influence on staff availability, but also on customers, who may become paralyzed with fear and anxiety, leading to higher delinquencies, increased online banking volume, more requests for extra credit, and, in the worst-case scenario, bank runs.

Virtual Corporation has designed and implemented Business Disaster Recovery Planning for many financial and banking institute clients.  From resilience and recovery planning, cybersecurity, building engagement, training & testing, we help keep our clients’ organizations prepared and ready to respond at all times. Our goal is to ensure continuous business operations and service with the least possible impact in the event of any type of emergency, business disruption, or other unforeseen circumstances. 

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Disaster Recovery Plans for Banks

Our disaster recovery plans for banks address the key elements of Life Safety, Business & Technology Recoverability & Risk (both internal & external). These plans help our financial clients ensure that their customers have access to their funds and securities-related data during all significant business disruptions (SBDs). This includes local or regional events such as natural disasters, fires, power outages, acts of malice, & technical or infrastructure disruptions. Virtual Corporation’s continuity plans cover disruptions ranging from building-specific events, such as an isolated technology problem or fire to regional issues such as earthquakes & hurricanes.

Virtual Corporation has deep connections across the financial and insurance sectors, ensuring that we stay on top of the latest developments in business impact analysis (BIA) and all organizational resilience-related standards.

Business continuity management (BCM) solutions compliant with Federal Financial Institution’s Examination Council (FFIEC), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), Financial Services Authority (FSA) & more.

Sustainable Planner is scalable for optimal use with bank disaster recovery planning:

  • Specific scenarios of disruption
  • Steps to continue business during a disruption
  • Intended response & recovery
  • Business continuity plan (BCP) training
  • Business impact analysis (BIA)
  • Comprehensive administrative dashboard
  • Roles based templates and user interfaces
  • Automated BCP and disaster recovery plan (DRP) generator
  • Self-directed exercise for testing an implemented continuity plan

An essential step in any bank disaster recovery planning is a Business Impact Analysis that distinguishes critical from non-critical functions.
A critical function is one whose consequences for stakeholders or the extent of bank damage are deemed unacceptable or disastrous. Moreover, any function required or mandated by law is automatically considered critical. What is considered acceptable disruptions may change depending on the cost of establishing and maintaining the necessary business or technological recovery solutions.

An impact analysis identifies the recovery needs for each important function. These include the timeframe for restoring important operations following a disaster, as well as the business and technical requirements for each crucial process' recovery.

Banks now have shorter business recovery time targets than they had a few years ago. In reality, depending on the cause of the interruption, certain institutions can recover in a matter of hours, minutes, or sub-minutes. A disaster recovery plan for banks must also address or take into account market-based and geographic interdependencies since there are now local, national, and global banking networks, as well as infrastructure service providers.

Looking to dive into our financial industry offerings in more depth? Download our financial resilience brochure.

Financial Organizational Resilience