New site to ensure business continuity in event of disaster
MUSCAT -- The Central Bank of Oman (CBO) the regulatory body for banking and other financial institutions in Oman is embarking on a plan to establish an alternative building for its business continuity purposes. This site will be located at Knowledge Oasis Muscat (KOM), around 40 kilometres away from its head office located in central business district in Ruwi. A leasing agreement for this purpose was signed yesterday with Knowledge Oasis Muscat (KOM) to commence work on constructing the alternative building.
Present at the signing on behalf of the CBO were Saif bin Said al Busaidy, Director of Systems, Projects and Development, and Adnan bin Ali bin Jawad Sulaiman, Director of Public Relations and Communications.
Representing KOM were Mohammed bin Abubaker al Ghassani, Deputy Executive President of the Public Establishment for Industrial Estates (PEIE), which is overseeing the Technology Park, and Mohammed bin Hamad al Maskari, Acting General Manager of KOM.
A statement issued by CBO described the deal as "a milestone that marks the regulatory bank's commitment to its ongoing Business Continuity Planning and Management". "CBO recognises that business continuity planning is a crucial element of its risk management process and is seeking to mitigate the impact of a disaster by ensuring that alternative mission-critical processing capability is available, should it confront a disaster.
In the wake of 9/11 and other potential calamities, the CBO strongly believes that business continuity planning is both vital and indispensable to safeguard its capability to achieve its business objectives; its reputation and image; the stability of the banking and financial sector specifically, and ultimately its continuity to serve the Omani economy in general."
The statement further added: "Disasters could strike any entity at any time. This being the case, the real test of resilience to a disaster lies not in the ability to recover from a disaster but more importantly in the capability to continue its business operations and serve its customers without major service disruption.
In this sense 'emergency preparedness' goes much beyond the basic necessity of backing up of IT operations to a comprehensive pledge to provide continuity of critical business processes/operations from a business perspective. Hence, the alternative building intended for this purpose will not only enable CBO to recover its IT operations but also provide the ability to sustain its mission-critical business processes with minimal disruption."
CBO has emphasised that setting up of this alternative building will enable certain essential services extended to the government, banking and financial institutions in the Sultanate with least disruption. These critical services are largely system driven like RTGS (Payment System) and it is the bank's intention to sustain them with minimal down time.
In undertaking this critical initiative, the CBO is signalling its continuing intention and commitment to providing leadership to the banking and financial sector. The building at KOM will comprise around 4,500 square metres of floor space and after making suitable allocation for its own requirements, the bank aims to utilize the excess capacity to set up facilities essential for a Business Recovery Centre in a generic sense.
The aim is to make this Business Recovery Centre available to those banking and financial institutions interested in utilising these facilities from a business continuity management standpoint.
By Staff Reporter
© Oman Daily Observer 2006
