Finance Ministry asks PSBs to review their IT disaster preparedness

The Union Finance Ministry (FinMin) has instructed public-sector banks (PSBs) to review their information technology (IT) systems, especially the disaster recovery channels, a senior government official said, requesting anonymity. “The regulator (Reserve Bank of India) conducts its own audits regularly. We have also requested major PSBs to evaluate their disaster recovery channels, where banks maintain data in parallel,” said the senior government official.In case a bank headquartered in Mumbai stores backup data in another seismic zone, if one channel stops functioning, the other will automatically activate without causing any disruptions for customers, the official said. “Implementing such a system requires significant investment,” the official said. A query sent to FinMin remained unanswered till the time of going to press.Testing the disaster preparedness of various segments of the financial market has gained prominence in the recent past. On May 18, the Indian stock markets, such as BSE and NSE, conducted special trading sessions in the equity and derivative segments to evaluate their disaster preparedness in the event of major disruptions. Both exchanges underwent an intraday switch from the primary site to the disaster recovery site during this session.