3 October 2006

Dear Sir / Madam,

Basel Committee on Banking Supervision's Paper on
"High-level principles for business continuity"

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has recently issued a paper on certain high-level principles for business continuity management which was developed by the Joint Forum Business Continuity Working Group¹.

The purpose of the paper is to provide financial industry participants and financial authorities with guidance on how to improve the resilience of the financial system to major operational disruptions. A number of case studies and the related lessons learned are also set out in the annexes of the paper. The paper is a good reference for authorized institutions (AIs) and I enclose herewith a copy of the paper² for your reference. AIs are encouraged to take into account the relevant high-level principles mentioned in the paper when reviewing and enhancing their existing business continuity plan.

Yours faithfully,

Arthur Yuen
Executive Director
(Banking Supervision)

¹ The Joint Forum Business Continuity Working Group was established in early 2005 to develop the high-level principles for business continuity following a request from the Financial Stability Forum in September 2004.

2 The paper is also available on the BIS website (http://www.bis.org/publ/joint17.htm)