Regulated UK financial sector firms have until 31st March 2025 to comply with operational resilience regulations. By this date firms ‘must have performed mapping and testing so that they are able to remain within impact tolerances for each important business service. Firms must also have made the necessary investments to enable them to operate consistently within their impact tolerances’(FCA).
Given the upcoming deadline how are UK financial sector firms doing?
Just 69 percent of leaders at financial firms questioned by Censuswide researchers on behalf of Parseq, a business process outsourcer, said they were ‘very confident’ that their internal operations, processes and procedures would fully comply with the new operational resilience regulations by the 31st March 2025 deadline. However, just 2 percent of those surveyed said they had absolutely no confidence that they would meet this deadline for compliance.
There was a greater level of confidence in the ability of outsourcing partners to comply with the new rules. 74 percent of leaders said they were ‘very confident’ that functions performed for them by third-party suppliers would fully meet the new requirements before the deadline. The FCA has stated that firms are responsible for ensuring they remain within impact tolerances required by the legislation for important business services, regardless of whether they use external parties to provide them.
Leaders of large financial institutions are much more confident in their ability to comply with operational resilience legislation than leaders of smaller firms. 88 percent of those working at firms with more than 250 people said they were ‘very confident’ in their compliance with the new rules, and 94 percent expressed the same belief in their outsourcing partners. In contrast, just 58 percent of leaders at financial SMEs were ‘very confident’ they would comply themselves, rising to 62 percent for their third-party suppliers.
