Today, the role of IT has become so integrated and pervasive with
banking that it becomes necessary to mitigate the operational risks
arising out of failure of IT systems. Banking services came to a
standstill in Mumbai on 26th July 2005, due to unprecedented heavy
rains. It also affected banking services in other cities, as most
banks have their central switch for ATMs and core banking solutions
in Mumbai.

However, alternative data back-up centers established by banks in
other cities saved the day. Timely action also saved the banks in
protecting the data by transferring it to alternate centers in the
country.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines requires banking and
financial institutions to have a disaster recovery plan in place.
However, Reserve Bank's study in April 2005 revealed that some
banks were still in the process of framing a business continuity
plan (BCP). It is imperative that all banks have BCP's in place to
be in readiness to tackle serious business disruptions.

According to Mr Anurag Khanna, CEO, Banknet India, banks with
centralized systems and advanced technology infrastructure need to
take extra precaution, so that their services in other part of the
country are not disrupted, due to disaster at major centers like
Mumbai.

According to Banknet India, an IT focused banking research company,
in last 3 months major banks like State Bank of India, Oriental Bank
of Commerce, Canara bank, Bank of Maharastra, Indian Overseas Bank
have floated tenders to scale up their disaster recovery and
business continuity systems. In coming months, such requirements
will increase multifold as the banks in India are now looking at
their business continuity plans seriously and gearing up to put
disaster recovery systems in place.

BANK TECH SUMMIT, an International Conference organized by Banknet
India on 22nd September 2005 at Mumbai will address Planning and
implementation of disaster recovery and business continuity,
Managing business & technology risks in banks. Other areas to be
discussed at the conference include: RTGS, Cheque Truncation, ATMs,
Alternate Payment channels, Business Intelligence, Data mining,
Customer Relationship Management, Risk Management, KYC, Cash
Management etc.

For more information on Bank Tech Summit, please visit:
http://www.banknetindia.com