Recently ABC Singapore branch conducted a comprehensive Business Continuity and Local Disaster Recovery (DR) exercise as part of our operational readiness and risk mitigation program.  We are delighted that we achieved a complete success in this simulation.

Against the backdrop scenario of a damaged/destroyed office building which was rendered inaccessible to the Bank's employees, the Business Continuity Program (BCP) team of the Singapore branch office sprang into action immediately.  The BCP plans were activated into full swing and involved about 40% of total staff strength in the exercise; from IT, internal audit, human resource, middle and back office departments, as well as the front office personnel.  All of them made their way to the DR centre separately to perform the business recovery and verification works in implementing a slew of organizational emergency actions that spanned human resource arrangement, business systems recovery, business data input, local communication systems verification, Swift system test, usage of key documents backup, systems operation and date end closing, business reports generation and verification; amongst a host of other critical operational functions.

The exercise was observed by both internal audit and compliance departments, and simulated the required tasks with reporting status to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

The success of the exercise further attested the operational readiness and DR capabilities of ABC Singapore Branch business systems and processes.