Securities Industry Association to conduct business continuity test in October
New York-based Securities Industry Association (SIA) has informed the SIA Managing Executives that an industry-wide business continuity test will take place on Saturday, 14 October 2006. The test is being led by the SIA, the Bond Market Association, the Futures Industry Association, and the Financial Information Forum, as part of the ongoing securities industry testing initiative. The October 2006 test format will be similar to the 15 October 2005 test, but will include additional payment and market data components. “During the test, firms and service bureaus will connect simultaneously using backup data centers, backup communications links, alternate trading sites and alternate operations facilities to place test orders, receive simulated executions and conduct settlement interactions. The exercise will involve transactions for equities, options, futures, fixed income and settlement.”
SIA also says that “This is a critical exercise that will highlight our industry’s ability to operate through a significant emergency using backup sites and backup communications capabilities across the industry.”
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 utilities. SIA will compile aggregate results, but will not reveal the individual performance of any organization.
-read more in this SIA document (.pdf)
