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GCA Validation Service: Operational Following the Taiwan Earthquake
By Steve Letzler
Despite a loss of connectivity with the Shanghai office in the aftermath of the December 26 earthquake that hit southern Taiwan and severely disrupted telecommunications across East Asia, DTCC's Global Corporate Actions (GCA) Validation Service remained operational.
The Shanghai office, the GCA Validation Service's primary service center for corporate actions data on Asian securities, lost telecommunications capacity after the quake, but the London and New York offices were able to assume Shanghai's workload thanks to DTCC's business continuity plan, which is an integral part of the company's operations.
"The outage was invisible to our customers," said Peter Gleeson, DTCC vice president who oversees operations for the GCA Validation Service. "We continued doing business thanks to solid continuity planning, incredible teamwork and the dedication of our staff in New York, London and Shanghai, many of whom rearranged their holiday plans."
The GCA Validation Service provides corporate actions announcement information on 1.5 million securities from more than 160 countries, including many in Asia.
Redistributing the workload
When the Shanghai office lost connectivity, the New York and London centers immediately converted to longer shifts, with several over 12 hours, to assume the load of corporate actions that Shanghai was unable to process. Many employees who had made plans for the normally slow year-end holiday week changed their schedules to ensure ongoing service despite the region's impaired Internet and telephone connectivity.
Within two days of the earthquake, the Shanghai office resumed limited data input and output using a virtual private network. On January 2, it obtained access to another network, which enabled the 30-member staff to resume full operations.
This is the second time the GCA Validation Service's business continuity plan has been tested in its short two-and-a-half year history. In July 2005, the terrorist bombing of buses and subways in London forced the closing of the U.K. office, requiring New York and Shanghai to take up the slack. @