City of London tests disaster recovery plans

Banking firms in the City of London today conducted a trial of their back-up communications systems as part of an exercise to test the ability of the financial sector to cope following a major disaster such as a terrorist attack.

Around 40 to 50 financial sector businesses along with the Treasury, Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority (FSA) took part in the test this afternoon to simulate what would happen if key financial systems were taken out of operation.

The exercise is part of the FSA and government's plans to increase the resilience and disaster recovery capability of the UK's key financial markets in the event of "major operational disruption".

A spokeswoman for the FSA told silicon.com it was not about switching systems off but more a "walk- and talk-through" test of back-up communications to ensure the markets could continue to operate even if major systems were taken down.

"The emphasis was on communication between the regulators and the market as a whole," she said.

One of the objectives was to increase understanding about the information the authorities are likely to need to address a crisis, how they will acquire it and what response they need to make.

The FSA said it plans to hold further exercises on an annual basis to review and update disaster recovery procedures. This exercise was overseen by KPMG, who will report back to the FSA with the results at a later date.