Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery in Financial Services is the title of a tenth annual conference on Thursday, January 27, at Thistle Marble Arch, London W1.
Having weathered the worst financial crisis in a generation, financial institutions continue to face threats that demand highly professional business continuity planning. The recent air cargo bomb scare underlines the continuing terrorist threat, while the surge of cyber attacks has highlighted say event organisers the increasing implications of hacker’s strategies.
Unexpected technological events such as the so-called "flash crash" in the US in May this
year or the breakdown of the LSE Turquoise trading platform in November pose another challenge for BC.
Although dramatic in their impact it is the ongoing challenges that occupy most of the business continuity manager’s time. For instance the degree of integration between business continuity and overall company security, or persuading the top management that business continuity management is a compelling area for investment in these straitened times.
For the first time since these conferences began, there is a new Government so organisers plan to open with some thoughts on politicians’ perceptions of the role and importance of BCM. This is backed up later in the day by analysis of the state of national security and resilience.
The financial authorities’ names and roles are going to be changing in the coming year; already the title ‘Tripartite Group’ has been dropped, so this gives new interest to the views of the FSA , the Bank of England and HM Treasury.
The practical impact of a sudden crisis on a wide area is now under more and more scrutiny, so two sessions are devoted to this experience, Exercise
Orion, a major project across several southern counties, and a further one across the city of Manchester.
Financial institutions have always been aware of the need for a link between business continuity and security but there is now more concentration
on the need to integrate the two. Similarly, the cyber threat to business continuity has long existed but is now at the forefront of official concern.
Chairmen
Rick Cudworth, UK Head of Resilience and Business Continuity Division, Deloitte
Andy Tomkinson, MBCI, Partner, Adtapt
Keynote speaker
Lord Cotter, Former Liberal Democrat Spokesman in the House of Lords on Business, Innovation and Skills
Regulatory panel
John Milne, Sector Manager for Financial Stability, FSA
Kathy McCarthy, Head of Business Continuity Unit, Bank of England
James Snook, Head of Financial Sector Resilience, HM Treasury
Speaker panel
Tim Armit, Managing Director, Clifton Risk Management
Lyndon Bird, Technical Director, Business Continuity Institute
Jeff Brooker, MBCI, Head of Security and Business continuity, HM Revenue & Customs
Tobias Feakin, Director, National Security & Resilience, Royal United Services Institute
Clive Furness, Managing Director, Contango Markets
Peter Jopling, Security Sales & Strategy Manager, Software Grp, IBM UK Ltd
Roland Trott, Group Business Continuity Management Adviser, BP
Roy Wilsher, Chief Fire Officer, Hertfordshire and Programme Director, Exercise Orion.
