Financial industry gets ready for September pandemic exercises

Gird your loins and memorize your password. The Treasury Department is putting the final touches on its forthcoming 24 September pandemic exercise. Intended to test the resilience of the financial markets to a full pandemic wave, multi-week program is sponsored by the Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council for Critical Infrastructure Protection and Homeland Security (FSSCC) and the Securities Industry and Financial Management Association (SIFMA). Key goals of the exercise includes identifying systemic risk to the sector as a whole, providing participant companies an opportunity to test their individual plans against a realistic scenario, and to clarify the ripple effects of a pandemic within the markets and interdependent sectors (thus, the need for a multi-week excercise). All participants will take part in the exercise from their own offices, using email and a secure exercise Web site.