Bankers' Bank Business Continuity Plan
Bankers’ Bank has a business continuity plan and is committed to safeguarding the interests of our customers in the event of emergencies or significant business interruptions. The following information is an overview of the Bank’s Business Continuity Plan (‘Plan”). The Plan is subject to change without prior notice and in response to changing business needs.The Plan is committed to providing services and support systems necessary to conduct business under irregular conditions. These conditions may be defined as localized (affecting one or more divisions of the Bank) or bank-wide. The Plan provides information on strategies to mitigate risk in the event of interruptions. The Plan is designed to identify those areas most critical to the operations of the Bank and its customers and prioritize accordingly.
The Bank has a Disaster Committee, comprised of representatives from all divisions of the Bank. The Committee meets to review the Bank’s business continuity plans and acts as liaison to each division in the event of a disaster. The Bank’s Security Officer is also a member of the Disaster Committee.
Bank-Wide Business Interruptions
The Bank maintains contact lists for all employees and has a First Response Team in place to direct activities in the event of a bank-wide business interruption. All employees will be contacted in the event of a significant business interruption.
Bankers’ Bank maintains a separate facility (“warm site”) in Middleton, Wisconsin, for purposes of offsite business continuity ability. In the event of an emergency, key personnel may be relocated to the warm site. Bankers' Bank also employs a co-location datacenter facility located in Fitchberg, Wisconsin, for real-time back-up of critical systems for real-time or near real-time recovery in the event of a disaster.
Our back up equipment is fully dedicated to disaster recovery and is not used for other purposes. The warm site contains equipment, materials and communications lines necessary to activate critical systems in the event of a bank-wide business interruption. IT personnel test all hardware and connections annually at both the warm site and co-location facilities.
Localized Business Interruptions
Business continuity planning is an ongoing responsibility. The Bank recognizes that localized interruptions are more common than a bank-wide business interruption.
Each Bank division is responsible for identifying critical business processes within their areas. Processes are assigned risk factors dependent upon the criticality of the process to the Bank’s and customers’ operations. Continuity plans are developed based on the risk assessment rating. The Bank’s Internal Auditor audits the scope of these plans and testing results annually.
In the event of an electrical outage, the Bank has, on premise, a generator which will provide power for the building. The generator automatically activates immediately after power outage. The generator is tested on a monthly basis and arrangements are in place with a local fuel provider to keep the generator at full fuel capacity.
In the event of localized workstation failures, multiple workstations in each area receive the same configuration in order to provide access to systems from another station.
For systems that are outsourced, the Bank has agreements in place to allow Bank staff to work out of the system providers’ hot sites if necessary, or to receive information in other media.
Each division of the Bank has a designated staff member responsible for business continuity plan review and testing. Testing must occur at least annually. Annual testing results are presented to the Bank’s Board of Directors each November.
With regard to customer access to funds and securities, all customer funds and securities are held in central repositories or custodian banks. No cash or securities are held at the Bank.
Bankers’ Bank’s Plan is intended to allow the Bank to continue to meet critical Bank and customer needs in the event of a disaster. The Bank has evaluated numerous emergency situations and designed multiple solutions to meet disparate circumstances. Regardless of the effort, the Bank acknowledges that the unpredictable nature of disasters precludes absolute preparedness for any plan. Though the Plan is tested and reviewed, it is possible for circumstances to arise outside of defined procedures. Thus, the Plan is subject to change without notice and recovery procedures are reviewed and amended with regard to changing environments.
Pandemic Contingency Planning
The Bank recognizes the possibility of a pandemic influenza outbreak in the United States, as well as other similar threats, and as a result, mandates an ethic of infection control in the workplace to help control the spread of any disease. The Bank has identified the critical operations that must be sustained during a pandemic outbreak, and the means in which they will be continued. It is the responsibility of the pandemic team to provide regular communication and ongoing training to staff as needed regarding the current status of the pandemic influenza or other similar threat, as well as the contents and potential implementation of this plan. Cross training will be utilized to anticipate restoring operations in the absence of key employees. Succession and redundancy plans will reach across all parts of the Bank so that other employees or outside consultants could work in critical positions.
The Bank’s pandemic coordinator is the CIO and the team is comprised of the CIO, Senior Vice President of Human Resources, Administration Officer (Building Security), and IT Officer.
The team has identified the following source(s) they will rely on for independent, objective medical information regarding the pandemic, its current status, and its projected progress should an outbreak occur in the United States:
CDC
Local Public Health Officials
Local Hospital(s)
In addition to carrying out the responsibilities set forth in this plan, the team is also responsible for any necessary updating of the plan. Toward that end, the team must regularly stay informed on the progression of the avian H5N1 virus as well as other similar threats. The team will coordinate with local municipal and state emergency management organizations, as well as other local or regional business groups to share crisis-related information and perhaps coordinate responses. The President will be the media spokesperson for the Bank in the event of a crisis. If services to customers are altered or temporarily halted, communication to customers will begin immediately after communication to employees by the President or his designee(s).
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