Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery Plan
Our Business Continuity Plan addresses the following areas, including, but not limited to: data backup and recovery; mission critical systems; financial and operational assessments; alternative communications with customers, counterparties, employees, and regulators; alternate physical location of employees; critical business constituent bank and counterparty impact; and regulatory reporting.
Significant business disruptions can vary in their scope, such as disruptions to FFEC only, a building which houses our firm or the business district, city or region in which our firm is located. Within each of these areas, the severity of the disruption can also vary from minimal to severe. In a disruption to FFEC, a building housing our firm or the business district in which our firm is located, we aim to be operational within 4 hours of the disruption(s). Disruptions affecting the city or the entire region in which FFEC is located may require us to move staff and operations to an alternative site and recover and resume business as soon as possible. In either situation, we will provide notice to you regarding how to contact us via email, telephone, or through the website, www.ffec.com as soon as possible.
If the significant business disruption is so severe that it prevents us from remaining in business, we will notify our customers and counterparties as soon as possible.
All transactions are cleared and settle through a third-party clearing firm and FFEC is subject to disruptions that may impact our clearing broker’s ability to clear our trades. Our clearing firms have advised us that their objective is to restore its own operations and be able to complete existing transactions and accept new transactions and payments as quickly as possible. Your orders and requests for funds and securities could be delayed during this period. Our third-party clearing firm(s), or custodian of assets, also maintain Business Continuity Plan’s that are designed to minimize the impact of significant business disruptions. The Plans are sent to you when you open an account. In addition to service disruptions at FFEC, or one of our clearing firms, the ability to trade securities can be impacted by market events outside the control of FFEC or custodians, such as unexpected exchange closures.
Contacting Us – If after a significant business disruption, you cannot contact your FFEC representative or branch office by phone, email or fax, you can contact the custodian directly. Custodian information is found on your client statement in the account disclosure section. If you have questions about our business continuity plan, you can contact us toll free at (877) 591-5959 or by email at compliancedept@ffec.com.
