Business continuity planning booklet released by FFIEC

The US Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) has released new guidelines for business continuity planning for the financial services industry

WASHINGTON, DC – Business continuity planning (BCP) is the subject of a new booklet released by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) as part of the US supervisor’s IT handbook. The publication replaces the previous booklet and represents a shift towards enterprise-wide business continuity strategy – focusing on interconnectivity of processes outside of IT departments.

The first part describes the planning process and addresses senior management responsibilities. The second part focuses on examination procedures, followed by a glossary, appendices, and a reference list of relevant supervisory laws, regulations, and guidance.

The paper highlights the increasing need for BCP in recent years – in the wake of disasters such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina – and the importance of addressing these area-wide disaster scenarios. It also underlines increasingly demanding recovery time objectives (RTOs), saying these are now much shorter than a few years ago, with some RTOs based on hours or minutes.