Payment and securities settlement systems are essential to the efficient functioning of all modern economies and the Central Bank of Ireland is responsible for ensuring that payment systems and associated settlement systems are in place to meet the needs of all users.
The Central Bank has informed me that it has engaged extensively with the banks and the Banking and Payments Federation of Ireland regarding payments systems resilience since 2012 when there was a particular issue. This engagement has included, inter alia, IT and operational risk inspections, business continuity reviews, industry and firm specific risk assessments, third party reviews and close ongoing supervision. This has driven significant remediation effort in the banks.