# 723
Patrick Thibodeau has provided us with some excellent reporting on the technology scene and pandemic issues in the past. Today, he brings us disturbing details indicating that the country's financial heart, Wall Street, may be lagging behind in pandemic preparedness.
Federal watchdog says Wall Street isn't prepared for a pandemic
May 01, 2007 (Computerworld) -- The U.S. government's watchdog agency warned Tuesday that the country's financial markets haven't finished planning for a potential flu pandemic and recommended that federal banking and securities regulators set deadlines for completing the work.
The General Accounting Office said in a newly released report that if securities exchanges "fail to produce fully robust plans before an outbreak — which could begin at any time — they may have insufficient time and resources to adequately prepare their staffs and customers for changes in how the organizations will operate during a pandemic."
The report — the third that the GAO has issued on the "security and resiliency" of U.S. financial markets since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — is dated March but was just posted on the agency's Web site (download PDF).
As part of the report, the GAO looked at the pandemic plans of seven securities exchanges, markets, clearinghouses and payment processors that are deemed to be critical to the financial services industry. The report didn't identify the organizations but said only one had completed its planning for a possible pandemic.
In a joint letter that was attached to the report, federal regulators disagreed with the GAO's call for pandemic planning deadlines. The regulators said that planning efforts are in progress at all of the key financial market organizations and are being reviewed by the government on an ongoing basis.
"If we find organizations' efforts lagging, we will consider taking additional actions, including those you recommended," the regulators wrote in the joint letter, which was signed by officials at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve System and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
But the GAO, in a response to the comments of the regulators, held firm on its recommendation. Indeed, the GAO throughout the new report called on federal regulators to outline specific actions and deadlines for financial markets to meet.
Sadly, many companies seem to believe that we have unlimited time, and that pandemic preparedness is more of a `due diligence issue' than an immediate concern.
The GAO warns that a pandemic could `start any time', and they are correct. We don't know if we have days, weeks, months, or years.
Preparing for a pandemic, particularly for a large industry, isn't easy.
But it's a heck of a lot easier than trying to survive a pandemic unprepared.
