An unforeseen crisis can arise at any time among financial institutions, despite preventive measures that they have usually put in place.

A prevention approach helps avoid improvising upon the occurrence of such event, act efficiently and make the decisions that will have as few negative effects as possible on them. Discussing these organizational issues is critical for all financial institutions. Ideally, the existing organizational framework should be instrumental in the management of unforeseen events.

Thus, anticipation is the key word of any Crisis Management Plan.

What sort of crisis ?

All financial institutions must identify the sort of crises against which they are willing to protect themselves: personal injury (inside our outside the company), fires, malicious acts, media turmoil, etc… Crises are increasingly multifaceted.

Under all circumstances, the existing organization must allocate appropriate technical as well as human resources in order to minimize the negative direct or indirect consequences that such crises can trigger on employees, clients, IT, etc… as well as on financial institutions’ reputation in order to secure their long term future.

What are the components of a Crisis Management Plan ?

Any Crisis Management Plan is based on the following:

• Resources to detect undesired events, together with their resulting alarm and alert procedures
• Resources that are deemed necessary to manage such a crisis
• A description of the organization that allows implement appropriate means and an efficient crisis management framework
• Tolls that help gain the best possible understanding of such crisis (action sheets, plans, miscellaneous technical data, available resources, etc…).

Usually, a Crisis Management Plan is coupled with a Business Continuity Plan (“BCP”) which allows secure the financial institution’s long term viability following a major turmoil.

Our most frequent consulting services in these fields relate to the review and the testing of our clients Crisis Management Plans as well as the training of their crisis units.