The Indian banking sector has been advised to take adequate preparations for any eventuality amid the spread of COVID-19, with the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) issuing norms for banks, including staggering of duties and back-up of essential services.
Since the MD and CEO as well as executive directors are located in the head office, banks have been advised to relocate top officials in different offices in the unforeseen event of quarantining the entire building.
Banks have been asked to monitor key installation centres such as data centres holding the core banking solutions, ATM switch, treasury and SWIFT operations centre, among others. Key officials managing these installations have been advised not to remain in the same office. The plan suggested splitting of treasury functions in different locations and an alternative disaster recovery (DRC) centre in case of complete shutdown of a building where such operations are located.
ADVERTISEMENT
“In the event of complete shutdown of Mumbai, where most of the banks have treasury and data centres, the alternative DRC should be kept in readiness,” the guidelines said.
The guidelines were prepared after a meeting among bankers regarding preparedness of the banking system to tackle the situation. The human resources department has been asked to replace physical registers with biometric attendance and the management asked to be considerate in sanctioning leave for unwell employees.