The International Securities Services Association (ISSA) publishes its Operational Resilience Questionnaire for the Securities Services Industry.
ISSA has shared its newly created Operational Resilience Questionnaire (ISSA ORQ).
Designed for use by the Securities Services Industry, the ISSA ORQ will be an invaluable tool to help organisations to assess their own critical functions and operational readiness as well as that of their counterparties and suppliers.
MYRIAD Group Technologies was instrumental in creating the ISSA ORQ, the Working Group being co-chaired by Managing Director, Simon Shepherd, and contributions made to the questionnaire and glossary by the MGTL Team on the Working Group.
The ISSA ORQ is available for use on CODUDE, our dedicated, low cost due diligence platform.
What is the ISSA ORQ?
Operational Resilience enables organisations to predict, navigate, adapt and recover from disruption to their critical functions. In assessing operational resilience, organisations need both to request and to provide evidence and attestation around operational resilience standards. The ISSA ORQ is a tool that can assist organisations in completing that assessment. It is designed specifically for use by organisations involved in Securities Services and is based on the Basel Committee of Banking Supervision (BCBS) operational resilience principles. It has also been reviewed against other standards and principles to ensure the guidance is global.
Why is the ISSA ORQ needed?
Whilst there are many operational resilience questionnaires around, there is currently no single ‘industry-wide’ methodology for demonstrating operational resilience that caters for the Securities Services Industry. Furthermore, and specifically, there is currently no means for responding in a consistent, efficient and sustainable manner to due diligence questions on the topic of Operational Resilience.
Who should use the ISSA ORQ?
The ISSA ORQ is designed for use by Securities Services organisations, such as those providing clearing, securities settlement, securities safekeeping, asset servicing and funds distribution as well as third-party suppliers of operational and technology services to the Securities Services industry. Depending on an organisation’s regulatory or supervisory oversight, the ISSA ORQ can be supplemented with other information. The ISSA ORQ can therefore be used on a stand-alone basis or incorporated it into an organisation’s broader operational resilience policies.
What are the key benefits of the ISSA ORQ?
The ISSA ORQ provides multiple benefits to the Securities Services Industry through:
- Enabling organisations to assess the operational resilience of themselves, their counterparties or other Securities Service Providers.
- Using appropriately considered operational resilience principles and a consistent and standardised methodology.
- Providing organisations with the information they need to understand how they mitigate and can rapidly – but safely – recover from the impact of such significant, potentially harmful, operational issues.
