ACH Operational Resilience Whitepaper & Free Practical Exercise
Growing cybersecurity threats and regulatory concerns have amplified the need for increased operational resilience around all critical banking and payments functions. To help organizations, Nacha and the Global Resilience Federation (GRF) have partnered on a new white paper, “Enhancing Operational Resilience for ACH Network Participants.”
The whitepaper outlines five crucial measures for enhancing the operational resilience of ACH processing in the banking payments sector, including:
- Developing, reviewing, and updating ACH incident and recovery plans annually.
- Defining Minimum Viable Service Levels (MVSLs) for ACH services.
- Establishing Service Delivery Objectives for swift ACH service restoration.
- Implementing recovery mechanism to meet Service Delivery Objectives.
- Independently evaluating and testing ACH service restoration processes.
Nacha and the GRF offer these measures because business process impairment is no longer confined to physical threats. Non-physical threats demand adaptive continuing and recovery plans. Cyberattacks, especially advanced and persistent ones, pose ongoing challenges, requiring robust recovery measures.
In addition, U.S. financial regulators, including the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, stress the need for Operational Resilience. The evolution from traditional Business Continuity to Operational Resilience involves establishing MVSLs and coordinating risk assessments across various domains.
In a landscape where cyber threats continuously evolve, and regulators emphasize resilience, these measures serve as a proactive approach to fortify ACH network participants.
Download the full paper.
ACH Operational Resilience Exercise
Strengthen your resilience by participating in GRF’s FREE Tabletop Exercise!
In collaboration with Nacha, GRF will hold a practical session to asses operational resilience based on key measures outlined in their shared whitepaper (above).
Register for a free tabletop exercise on March 19 or April 17 which simulates a destructive wiperware incident with a major ACH outage. This half-day event addresses IT, operations, risk management, media management, regulator engagement, and organizational prioritizations.
Designed for practitioners from commercial banks, credit unions, and core systems processors. Attendance is anonymous. Don’t miss this opportunity to fortify your organization’s resilience!
Register for the free exercise.
If you need help addressing identified vulnerabilities following the event, reach out to us for assistance!