Business continuity in the cash industry

Business continuity in the cash industry

The Banque de France has sole authority to issue banknotes that are legal tender in mainland France. This task is delegated to the IEDOM in the overseas departments and communities whose currency is the euro: Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, Mayotte, Reunion, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and the French Southern and Antarctic Territories (TAAF).
Responsibility for supplying the public with banknotes and coins, even in times of crisis, therefore falls entirely to the Banque de France, even though the latter does not have control of the entire cash supply chain. For this reason:

• the Banque de France has developed internal business continuity plans for sensitive processes ; 
• an organisation has been set up with other stakeholders in the cash cycle to allow the Bank to steer a potential crisis affecting the whole cash supply chain.

Banque de France branches are part of these arrangements. They implement continuity plans.

General crises are managed within the framework of a financial industry resilience system 

The Paris Resilience Group was created in 2005 at the initiative of the Banque de France in order to strengthen the operational resilience of the Paris financial centre, by ensuring that the financial system can withstand shocks to its critical functions.
The overall resilience system is designed to prevent operational crises from causing lasting disruption to the financial system, and to coordinate the responses of the main market participants in the event of an incident affecting the functioning of the financial ecosystem.

The Paris Resilience Group is chaired by the Banque de France and comprises the following main stakeholders:

• The French Banking Federation
• The main banking groups, and payment and settlement infrastructure providers
• Public authorities (Directorate General of the Treasury and Economic Policy, senior defence and security officials from the Ministry of the Economy) 
• Financial sector supervisory authorities.
• These players are mobilised in the event of a crisis to closely monitor the situation in the financial sector, dialogue with public authorities and take collective decisions.

Specific crisis units may also be activated:

• Financial Centre Crisis Unit - Liquidity (CCP-L)
• Financial Centre Crisis Unit - Communication (CCP-C)
• Financial Centre Crisis Unit - Cash (CCP-F)

The Financial Centre Crisis Unit – Cash is run by the Banque de France and includes representatives of banks, cash-in-transit companies, the retail trade sector, the Ministry of the Economy and the Ministry of the Interior.

The fiduciary aspects of a crisis most often require local monitoring
Monitoring a crisis requires centralised management and a centralised decision-making mechanism. However, due to the specific characteristics of cash activities, which are decentralised and subject to physical constraints, local structures are necessary in order to:

• collect information to inform the Financial Centre Crisis Unit - Cash and the authorities (Prefect) who, due to the highly sensitive nature of cash activities in terms of security, can be directly mobilised on operational actions by the Ministry of the Interior;
• ensure the various actors are consulted;
• implement locally the actions decided on by the national crisis management bodies.