This year has been unlike any other. The financial services industry has not only navigated through unprecedented volatility, it has also adjusted to remote working conditions while continuing to operate “business as usual”.
As the industry continues in this virtual environment, DTCC remains focused on protecting the seamless operations of the capital markets. This includes the efforts of several DTCC teams who are tasked with testing business continuity and disaster recovery plans required by Regulation Systems Compliance and Integrity (Reg SCI).
During a Reg SCI exercise, DTCC simulates a data center outage, data recovery, and client access enablement. DTCC has successfully completed this annual exercise for the past five years; however, this year presents unique and new challenges, testing the continuity and resiliency of our systems while most DTCC staff are working from home.
Specifically, Reg SCI is designed to:
About Reg SCI
Established in 2014, Regulation Systems Compliance and Integrity (Reg SCI) was adopted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in response to securities markets being increasingly dependent on technology and automated systems. This annual exercise is completed to strengthen the technology infrastructure of the U.S. securities markets by testing and validating capacity and redundancy to continue processing transactions, no matter what unexpected events come our way.
- Reduce the occurrence of systems issues;
- Improve resiliency when system problems do occur;
- Enhance the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission's (SEC) oversight and enforcement of securities market technology infrastructure.
For DTCC, this means that groups such as operations, business continuity, and IT must work together with testing and resiliency teams at client firms to ensure the safety and soundness of our systems. More than 125 individuals across DTCC, along with staff from nearly 30 of our largest clients, will work together on the 2020 Reg SCI testing. Two weekends of testing were executed in August and September, with one more scheduled in October. This type of exercise will also occur across a dozen U.S based organizations as part of this exercise.
As DTCC President and CEO Mike Bodson says, every DTCC employee plays a critical role in protecting the industry, and ultimately, the investing public. All employees — regardless of their department, title or role — contribute to our collective efforts in safeguarding the financial system.