The Covid-19 pandemic has shone a spotlight on operational resiliency, as financial institutions scrambled to lift and shift the majority of their workforce from the office to the home with only a few weeks’ notice. It has stretched business continuity plans to breaking point and forced banks to quickly iterate and adapt their risk modelling and scenario analysis. Banks have also assessed the resilience of the whole value chain, evaluating, testing and strengthening relationships with both clients and correspondent institutions.
Unquestionably, the investments that banks have poured into digitally transforming their businesses over the past decade has meant this hasty transition has gone smoother than most expected. It appears that not only are banks in a better balance sheet position compared to the previous crisis, but their technology stack is also much more robust to withstand seismic shocks.
