The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the thought leader as an individual, and are not attributed to CeFPro or any particular organization.
By Michael Sparks, Chief Risk Officer, Issuer Services, BNY Mellon
In what ways do you think organizations have had to become more resilient to COVID-19?
The most obvious and pressing areas in which resilience was required and built were firstly operational resilience (the ability to continue to operate) and secondly commercial resilience (the financial and strategic health of the business). For the banking sector a combination of the post crisis uplift in regulatory standards on all things resilience – business continuity, capital and liquidity – and ever improving technology enabled impressive levels of business continuity in the global banking system and across financial market infrastructure providers. In contrast to the global financial crisis of 2008 systemically significant banks had sufficient capital and liquidity to assuage any concern about their ongoing viability and government support was (happily) directed towards supporting the broader economy.
Significant challenges to personal wellbeing and resilience was something that organizations were perhaps less well prepared for in terms of formal planning but is nevertheless an area where organizations have reacted with impressive speed to address. Aided (again) through improving technology, and against the backdrop of improving levels of awareness of, and attention to, mental health related issues, firms have reacted quickly to make resources available to employees to boost personal resilience.
