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.