Hong Kong Financial Services 
​​Business Continuity Management Forum

ARE WE PREPARED? LET'S BE.

Disasters can strike at any time.​

Whole Industry Simulation Exercise 2015


"WISE 2015"

An industry-wide initiative for Business Continuity Management in the banking and securities sectors in Hong Kong.


​A summary report has been prepared to give an overview of Hong Kong's first industry-wide crisis simulation exercise for financial services. The report can be found here.


WISE 2015 A Huge Success

​After months of preparations WISE2015 was successfully held on the 9th of October 2015. The Crisis Management Teams (CMTs) from 25 financial institutions participated in the exercise and a team of more than 30 professionals worked behind the scenes to ensure the exercise ran smoothly. Feedback was collected from participants and was overwhelmingly positive.

The WISE2015 scenario involved elements of physical, cyber, and information security and achieved its three primary objects:

Increase individual firms' familiarity with Business Continuity Plans (BCPs) and facilities.
Practice inter-bank and agency coordination, crisis communication, and crisis management skills.
Improve the resilience of the financial services industry in Hong Kong.

We wish to thank everyone that contributed to the success of WISE2015 and the participating companies. 

Photos of the Command Centre on the day are now available.

A post-event press release regarding WISE2015 can be found here.


A Media Release has been issued on 8 May 2015 to local and international media.

Frequently Asked Questions for WISE2015 are available on this website.

A Facilitator Briefing was successfully organised on 14 July 2015. More information on this website.

A WISE Portal Connectivity Test was held on Monday 31 August 2015 to ensure that the portal was fully operational and accessible by all participants of WISE2015. Further details and related files can be found on this website.







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Crisis Management​

Crisis management (CM) is the process by which an organization deals with a major event that threatens to harm the organization, its stakeholders, or the general public. The issues are typically so important, unexpected, extraordinary, urgent and sometimes emotional, that normal management is insufficient. It involves procedures and plans, but also individual skills and practices. In many countries, banks jointly engage in industry-wide table top exercises, where the Crisis Management Team (CMT) from each organization discusses the response to a challenging hypothetical situation, or a scenario, which is unfolded from a central simulation centre. Similarly, WISE 2015 was an industry-wide crisis management exercise where participating organizations jointly exercised their abilities to respond to the different crisis scenarios.



WISE 2015 OBJECTIVES

  • Strengthen confidence with clients, regulators and the public

  • Fulfil regulatory requirements

  • Familiarization with CM processes

  • Promote crisis and stress management skill training

  • Familiarization with Business Continuity Plans (BCPs) and facilities

  • BCP test coverage and feasibility and BCP stress test of plans

  • Create sense of urgency

  • Promote Business Continuity Management

  • Practice interbank and inter-agency coordination

  • Practice crisis communication, internal, external and with regulators



Why Participate ?

It is a cost efficient and unified way to meet good market practice. Many countries have run similar exercises and learned from the experience.
It gives good public visibility, further supporting Hong Kong's public image as the financial hub in Asia.



TARGET PARTICIPANTS

Financial institutions such as banks, security brokers and asset managers are welcome to participate in WISE 2015.



PARTNERS

HKFSBCM worked closely together with KPMG, PWC, Deloitte, ASIFMA, and the BCI to plan for, coordinate and execute WISE 2015.



FEES

WISE 2015 was not for profit. To cover the expenses to organize it, there was a participation fee of HKD 40,000. Expenses accounts are auditable. We utilized resources and expertise available from HKFSBCM members whenever and wherever possible.



Final Deliverables

A post-exercise evaluation report will be released to each participating financial institution. A generic report will be made available for all participating financial institutions as well as authorities.



WISE 2015 is a simulation exercise

Click HERE to read more.
Click HERE for Frequently Asked Questions

Click HERE for sample inject video