The Bank of England (BoE) has said it will set targets for banks and other financial companies to meet to prevent and manage cyber attacks or major IT failures.
The Financial Policy Committee, the branch of the BoE that deals with systemic risks in the UK financial system, is developing guidelines to deal with operational errors.
The Financial Policy Committee (FPC), the branch of the BoE that deals with systemic risks in the UK financial system, is developing guidelines to deal with operational errors. Speaking on behalf of the bank, Lyndon Nelson, deputy chief executive of the BoEs Prudential Regulation Authority arm, said it will develop a discussion paper for regulators to collate their views to create a common framework for coping with cyber attacks.
The FPC will supervise this and ensure that financial companies develop resilience against technology threats.
It is also developing supervisory tools to assess firms resilience against threats.
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He said: “Banks have been used to safeguarding their financial interests from fraudsters and even bank robbers for decades, but in the case of operational matters the barriers to entry for those who would seek to do harm to the bank are much lower.”
“We must find a way to manage the financial system with this vulnerability,” he added.
The statement comes after a series of operational failures for financial companies in recent weeks. VISA. Earlier this month, Visa was hit by a fault, preventing transactions in Europe from being processed. In April, the bank TSBs new IT system crashed, prompting major difficulties in online banking and a tenfold increase in reports of “phishing” in a month. This led to the launch of an investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority, this month.
In response to these issues, Nelson said: “We will expect firms to test their tolerances and demonstrate to their supervisors that they have concrete measures in place to deliver resilient services.”
Read more: MPs demands answers from Visa boss over service outage
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