Central Depository Company conducted a successful full-day Business Continuity drill on Tuesday, June 14, 2011. The drill was conducted unannounced to assess the preparedness of the Company to resume all critical operations from disaster recovery / alternate sites in minimum possible time without compromising on quality of services in the event of a disaster and subsequent evacuation. The exercise turned out to be a total success as all core objectives regarding relocation of critical staff to disaster recovery sites, recommencement of operations and continuity of services with uniterrupted customer services were met as per the drill plan. All vital business processes were resumed from alternate / backup sites. This included availability of required systems, work space and human resources.

CDC is now confident that in case of an unforeseen disaster, not only all customer information and critical software systems will remain safe but all services and important functions can also resume operations in the shortest possible time.

Earlier, a similar Business Continuity Drill was conducted on Saturday, May 28, 2011 for Islamabad based CDS Elements and IAS customers. On the drill day, all CDS customers from Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Peshawar connected to the alternate dialup connection on CDC Karachi numbers. All CDC Investor Account Services customers were offered services from a makeshift office in the lobby of ISE Towers.

The drill for ISE based CDS elements was also intended to evaluate their connectivity through alternate dialup connection in case of LAN unavailability. Therefore, it is important for LSE and ISE based clients to ensure that their alternate dialup connection is fully functional to avail uninterrupted connectivity in case of any unforeseen circumstances.