BoE speaks on operational resilience

Charlotte Gerken has spoken of the BoE’s approach to operational resilience. She focussed on how it is developing its approach in co-operation with firms and other regulators. BoE’s aim is to improve the ability of the financial services sector to absorb the impact of an unexpected event while continuing to perform its key activities.  Part of its focus is to look at the interconnectedness of firms and their links and dependencies, not just the resilience of individual institutions. She said firms need to plan for anything happening and noted that firms that perform best in stress tests seem to be those that really understand their business. BoE wants to help in identifying and focussing on critical functions and activities and looking at the best response. She also looked at the particular risks posed by cyber threats and how BoE is testing firms and encouraging them to prepare to address the risks they face.