Report calls for financial firms to prioritise operational resilience

A report from banking and financial services sector trade association UK Finance and management consultancy Parker Fitzgerald has highlighted the importance of financial services firms making operational resilience a priority as they adopt new technologies.

According to the study, the speed at which technology is advancing is creating new non-financial risks in the financial services sector and so businesses need to address these risks in order to protect themselves from new threats.

Framework

While new technologies such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing can help financial services businesses to create new products and platforms which help to reduce operational costs, issues such as cyber vulnerabilities and other risks are emerging.

The report called for businesses to take action against these risks, warning that failure to deal with them could result in operational and systematic threats in the financial services sector.

Businesses in the sector are also urged to work with technology suppliers and domestic and cross-border regulators to develop a risk framework that enables them to welcome the benefits of new digital technologies.

Safeguard

Parker Fitzgerald’s Leading Partner, Global Technology Services Matthew Hayday offered a number of suggestions to help businesses deal with the emergence of new risks, stating: “To safeguard their organisations through the digital transformation journey, financial firms need to close the gap between their digital aspirations and the reality of their legacy IT estates. Key activities include reducing reliance on legacy systems, de-cluttering redundant systems, and using analytics to predict and quantify the impact of non-financial risks.”