New | Hong Kong banks caught in dilemma on sharing cyber data
The spotless results from a recent sector-wide crisis management test show banks still reluctant to share cyber data
When a bomb rocks a transport hub in Hong Kong, one of the densest clusters of banks and brokers on the globe, it is amazing that the city does not descend into financial chaos.
Odder still is how banking business hardly skips a beat when digital infection vines through the computing systems of the biggest lenders here.
Those were, at the very least, the finding from Hong Kong’s first industry-wide test on how banks hold up and push forward with business during a major crisis. The bombs, the cyber attacks and the so-called “anti-capitalist activitsts” were, of course, simulated during the drill. The near-flawless results, however, may underline a sector-wide and even global weakness in finance instead of banker invincibility.
“It was surprising to see that bombs didn’t affect the banks’ businesses,” said Kelvin Leung, a consultant who helped organise the test in October, and a director at a Big Four financial services firm.
Surprising, he says, because this was the first time the crisis management teams at banks faced these challenges in real time along side their peers. Running into to at least a few hitches would be expected.
What’s not surprising about the drill was that banks across the board opted out of sharing insight into the problems they ran into.
