Emergency Crisis Management Command Center

In the event of a significant incident that affects or has the potential to affect the operations of the financial system, SIFMA will help to coordinate the financial industry’s business continuity planning efforts. These efforts are managed through SIFMA’s Emergency Crisis Management Command Center, which identifies the status of industry participants, disseminates vital information and facilitates actions to assist market response and recovery. Coordination is arranged amongst financial firms, exchanges, industry utilities, regulators, government agencies and public sector emergency managers.

A significant emergency or incident can be regional or national, and may include events such as:

• Physical and cyber terrorism
• Major industry IT or operations failures
• Snow storms
• Floods
• Hurricanes
• Pandemics

If a significant emergency or incident is detected, SIFMA assesses the situation at hand with a team of representatives from across the industry. If warranted, the Emergency Command Center is activated. Once activated, SIFMA coordinates an orchestrated sequence of events:

• Convene members of the SIFMA BCP Committee along with other interested parties to discuss the situation and next steps. Emergency alerts are disseminated with relevant information through websites and conference calls.
• Make any fixed-income or equity market closure recommendations through the SIFMA Market Response Committees.
• Continue coordination with exchanges, industry utilities, regulators and public sector emergency managers. The public sector represents local, regional and national government agencies such as U.S. Treasury, Homeland Security and through bodies such as the New York City Office of Emergency Management (OEM) and Emergency Operations Center (EOC), at which SIFMA holds and staffs an industry seat.

Throughout the incident, information is disseminated and coordinated amongst relevant parties until the situation is resolved

SIFMA holds industry-wide business continuity planning testing to encourage readiness for emergencies.

SIFMA and its members that are active on the Business Continuity Planning (BCP) Committees have assembled BCP resources that can help firms access key information from many of the private and public sector organizations we collaborate with.

For information regarding related committees, visit SIFMA’s operations and technology committees.

For additional information on BCP or SIFMA’s Emergency Crisis Management Command Center and Industry Testing, please email Thomas Wagner.