Business continuity management at Macquarie

At Macquarie, business continuity awareness, preparedness and capability form an integral part of our business and is detailed in our Business Continuity Management (BCM) Policy and Program. Like many financial institutions, Macquarie reports its Business Continuity Plan (BCP) readiness to its regulators as required.

The main objective of the Macquarie BCM Policy is to ensure that Macquarie is adequately prepared to continue business-critical functions in the event of a disaster, and to uphold its contractual agreements with third parties, including clients. In line with this framework, Macquarie has developed global pandemic management plans and strategies in response to the global avian influenza threat of 2003 and to the emerging threat of an H1N1, or swine influenza, pandemic.

Crisis management procedures and responsibilities are documented, detailing communication and escalation procedures in the event of business disruption or a disaster.  These procedures are reviewed on a regular basis by management to ensure they are up to date with current business practices. Concurrently, guidelines are communicated to all employees on a regular basis as part of the BCP Program.

Monitoring risk to individual countries is regularly conducted by Macquarie's Corporate Risk Department, focusing on those countries where Macquarie has an existing presence. The strategy uses the advice and pandemic preparation plans of the governments of the major locations in which we operate, the World Health Organization, and our specialist risk and medical advisors.

Preventative measures have been identified that assist in limiting the spread of infectious diseases that could impact Macquarie's operations. These include supplier agreements for the procurement of Tamiflu, hand washes and masks.

Business continuity planning is centrally managed across Macquarie by a dedicated team. Each Division has its own BCP Manager responsible for the coordination of the Division's recovery in accordance with the Division's Business Continuity Plan. These plans identify key personnel, their alternates and recovery sites.

Disaster recovery plans for all critical applications and systems are tested on a regular basis. Results of application recovery tests are documented and reviewed. Servers for all critical applications are backed up in alternate locations. Tests of main and back-up servers are conducted on a regular basis.

Communication teams are identified in each location as well as at a Corporate level. These teams will establish communications with internal employees, clients and members of the media.

At Macquarie, there has been an extensive program of annual testing since 2002 with successful results. The rehearsal exercises involve a selection of challenging disaster scenarios for site tests and consist of business and systems outages in order to measure quality and timeliness of business response and application recovery.