This article is the second part of a four-part series titled How to keep your systems running, reduce risk, and enable growth post-Covid-19. Recent events have caused a change in Financial Markets Technology risks and our mini-series will help you rebalance your budgets to:

  • Ensure the integrity of your current services in these unique circumstances
  • Simplify and reduce risks as well as medium-term costs
  • Develop new products and services to enable growth in line with the new budgeting techniques

Financial Resources | How to Budget for the New World

First things first  –  the starting point is different. Forget last year and the year before. In fact, forget anything that is after the great depression of the 1930s. Oh, wait a minute, forget anything before that too because we were not living in a computerized world then.

My point is that there is no point, no point at all of reference for the budgets that need to be re-drafted for 2020 and drawn up for 2021 – 2023. We need to start again from scratch and answer the question: “What really matters now ?

What we have today must keep running

This is not as simple as approving the hardware, software and system support costs. What we have today is not a technology platform but delivery of essential services to a now frightened client base. The new BAU must:

  • Be accessible by your staff no matter where they are located
  • Be able to cope with the volume of access required during lockdown
  • Be fully secure
  • Be able to cope with peak volumes and not rely on manual work arounds
  • Be able to cope with exceptionally high levels of volatility
  • Meet the Service Level Agreements you have with your customers
  • Be accessible to your clients

What has traditionally been called RTB (Run the bank) budgets now require a one-off higher level of investment simply to guarantee that what we already offer to the client base is able to keep running no matter what conditions we encounter. A budget must be set against each one of these items and a senior staff member assigned to ensure the needed work is completed within a one-year period.

This mini-series was taken from a paper written by our CEO, Terry Boyland. To read the entire paper, click this link.