Analyses focus on current issues of particular relevance to Danmarks Nationalbank’s objectives. The analyses may also contain Danmarks Nationalbank’s recommendations. They include our projections for the Danish economy and our assessment of financial stability. Analyses are targeted at people with a broad interest in economic and financial matters.
Emergency preparedness for critical financial sector activities in extreme scenarios
The threat landscape is complex and the risk of severe operational disruptions due to cyberattacks or physical sabotage cannot be ruled out. With the support of FSOR – a sectoral collaboration between key companies and authorities in the financial sector – Danmarks Nationalbank has analysed the operational emergency preparedness of financial sector activities most critical to society. The focus is on ensuring that citizens and businesses can continue to make payments and transfer money, even if key systems or data are unavailable. The analysis has led to a number of recommendations from Danmarks Nationalbank to key financial companies, aimed at enhancing emergency preparedness by adding an extra safety net.
Key messages
Why is this important?
Actors in the financial sector are responsible for operating the financial infrastructure that is critical to society. The financial infrastructure ensures, among other things, that financial transactions can be processed, that citizens can make payments in stores and that businesses can pay salaries.
The operation of critical financial infrastructure may be exposed to serious cyberattacks or other operational incidents that could cause disruptions and outages. In particularly critical situations, this may pose a threat to both the continued operation of individual financial companies and overall financial stability. It is therefore essential that the companies continuously work to handle both technical issues and attacks and that they have emergency solutions in place to handle severe, prolonged outages.
Main chart
Connection between key financial companies and activities critical to society