Operational resilience is now in focus like never before.  Whilst publication of the joint discussion paper ?Building the UK financial sector's operational resilience? in July 2018 by the Bank of England, Prudential Regulatory Authority and FCA brought the issue into sharp relief, the reality is that the banking sector has long sought to build a better, more resilient system in order to meet the needs of customers, clients and other stakeholders.  

What has changed in recent times are expectations. UK regulators now expect that operational resilience is considered by firms on a par with financial resilience. Customers now expect that services should be provided seamlessly 24/7. Firms are now expected to manage significant mandated regulatory change programmes, all the while also being expected to constantly innovate in the way that they deliver services to customers and clients. Communication expectations around operational incidents have changed as well, with the proliferation of social media resulting in customers becoming consumers, sources and multipliers of incident information in real time. No longer do firms have the luxury of time to deal with unexpected operational incidents; they must be agile, responsive and honest in their communications with customers, all while actually trying to solve the problems that caused the outage in the first place. 

In the face of these changes, how should firms respond? How can firms meet the expectations of policy makers and the public? The paper we are publishing today, ?Perspectives: operational resilience in financial services?, reflects the latest thinking of UK Finance members in addressing these questions and the considerations driving them. In partnership with EY, we have held a number of rolling workshops with retail, commercial, custody and wholesale financial institutions to explore many of the ideas raised within the joint discussion paper, and have developed these further. Our aim is not to prescribe a specific approach or gold standard, but to offer perspectives that may help inform firms as they grapple with these issues. These perspectives may be especially useful to firms as they look to enhance their own resilience as well as contribute to the greater resilience of the sector.

The joint discussion paper is a significant change in focus and intent of the authorities. Firms will need to take proactive steps in order to meet changing regulatory and customer expectations, but this will be an evolution, not a revolution. Our paper is just one step in our wider programme of conferences and training to help members meet the challenges head on while seeking to help the sector build upon existing capabilities.