Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plans for Rural Community Banks

The plan serves to safeguard non-human assets and provide for the prompt resumption of business. It identifies and prepares Rural and Community Banks for extended service outages caused by factors beyond their control, such as natural disasters, and aims to restore services to the broadest extent possible in a minimum time frame. The plan addresses five main types of disasters: natural disasters, human-caused disasters, technologically caused disasters, and system failures, which can impair the bank's ability to serve its customers and operate safely and soundly. The plan will serve as a guide for effectively dealing with disasters in an organized manner. The scope of this plan is limited to resolving issues in response to a disruption to the bank's operations, which may render the facility inoperable, inaccessible, or interfere with normal business operations. This is a business continuity plan, not a daily problem resolution procedures document. The plan provides for the safety of employees and customers, determines the allocation of resources, serves as a guide for the recovery teams, limits the magnitude of any loss by minimizing the duration of a critical application service interruption, and assesses damage, repair, and restores the computer center. The plan has been developed based on the underlying assumptions that key people will be available following a disaster, vital records will be stored in a secure off-site location and will be accessible immediately after the disaster, and each support organization will have a plan consisting of unique recovery procedures, critical resource information, and procedures. The plan also assumes that the offsite facility will be intact, operable, and available to support the relocation of the Head Office in case of a disaster at the head office. The plan identifies recovery teams, including the Emergency Management Team, Location Restoration Team, Local Restoration Team, Incident Response Team, and Technical Services. Each team member is required to familiarize themselves with the contents of the plan, designate an alternate backup, and keep an updated calling list of work team members' work, home, and cell phone numbers. The plan becomes active when a disaster occurs, and normal problem resolution procedures will initiate the plan, and remain in effect until operations are resumed at the original location or a replacement facility is established. The plan provides for the recovery of operations at alternative sites, the recovery of data and information imperative to the operation of critical applications, and the management of the recovery operation in an organized and productive manner. The plan does not cover disruptions from risks such as fraud by employees or management, economic recession or industry recession, ethnic conflicts, or a national disaster such as a coup d'etat. A disaster is defined as an event that can cause a significant disruption in operational and computer processing capabilities for a period, which affects the operations of these Rural and Community Banks. The plan provides for the recovery of operations at alternative sites, the recovery of data and information imperative to the operation of critical applications, and the management of the recovery operation in an organized and productive manner. The plan also provides for the recovery of critical functions with minimum disruption to customers.