18/07/2011

By Scott Thompson

Financial messaging provider Swift has announced the development of its Market Infrastructure Resiliency Service (MIRS). This is designed to keep key functions of Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) systems operating in the event of a major outage.

Swift has worked with several central bank operators of RTGS systems to determine how their arrangements could be improved to allow for business continuity even in the extreme scenario of the catastrophic loss of all production sites, at an acceptable cost. The Bank of England will participate in the MIRS pilot with a view to subscribing to the service when it becomes available. The MIRS service specifications have been agreed in collaboration with a number of central banks and development is under way. The current plan is to complete development by the start of Q2 2013. Following a pilot testing phase with the Bank of England, general availability is scheduled for Q4 2013.

MIRS will be technically operated by Swift while the central bank or payment market infrastructure will handle the business management of the service from its Crisis Command Centre connected to Swift. Alain Raes, chief executive, EMEA, Swift, says: “MIRS will make a vital contribution to the safety of critical payments market infrastructures, and Swift is perfectly positioned to help our customers benefit from highly resilient business continuity services at a reasonable cost, thanks to our existing footprint in the payments world. We are delighted to be working with the Bank of England to build a solution that caters for the interests of a whole community as we deliver on our key strategic thrust to expand our services for RTGS systems by leveraging our core competences.”