The Joint Forum has published a set of high-level principles for ensuring business continuity in the financial sector.

“Recent acts of terrorism, outbreaks of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and various widespread natural disasters have underlined the substantial risk of major operational disruptions to the financial system,” it notes. “Financial authorities and financial industry participants have a shared interest in promoting the resilience of the financial system to such disruptions.”

To that end, it reports that financial authorities have been working closely with financial industry participants to establish a consensus as to what constitutes acceptable standards for business continuity. The Joint Forum paper is intended, “to support international standard setting organizations and national financial authorities by providing a broad framework within which more detailed business continuity arrangements might be developed that are more closely tailored to unique sectoral and local circumstances. The principles also provide a consistent context for those arrangements and thereby promote a common base level of resilience across national boundaries.”

The paper outlines seven high-level principles that build upon traditional concepts of effective business continuity management, and it calls upon financial authorities to incorporate business continuity management reviews into their frameworks for assessing financial industry participants.