Business continuity (BC) is the uninterrupted operation of a business. The term refers to all of the organisational, technical and staffing measures that are employed to
- ensure the continuation of all core business activities in the immediate aftermath of a crisis, and
- guarantee the gradual restoration of business activities as a whole in the event of sustained and severe disruptions.
The financial market infrastructure refers to the payment and settlement systems, through which all the financial market transactions are concretely carried out. The infrastructure comprises system participants, the rules and regulations and practices and procedures to be complied with, and the services provided. The European financial market infrastructure is formed by a network of different operators where reliability and continuity is based on sound, robust and trouble-free functioning of the different components of this network. If, for some reason, one piece of the network is not working properly, it can cause problems for other participants. In a worst-case scenario, this can extend throughout the infrastructure and paralyse the entire financial system.
One way of ensuring the smooth functioning of the whole system is that every participant has a relevant business continuity system in place. As an overseer of local payment and settlement systems, the Bank of Finland continuously promotes this activity. One way of promoting the proper use of business continuity planning is this web page, which aims to share information on business continuity, with relevant links in both a domestic, European and global context.
The Bank of Finland and the local supervisor, FIN-FSA, work closely together in promoting the proper use of business continuity planning. The FIN-FSA is responsible for supervising individual institutions, and in that context inspects the business continuity plans of various relevant institutions.