KARACHI - Governor State Bank Ashraf Mahmood Wathra said on Monday that in a fast changing, highly vulnerable environment today, emergency preparedness as well as comprehensive arrangements for Business Continuity Planning were essential for the corporate world to ensure operational sustainability of institutions.  “We take pride that the State Bank has come a long way towards development of Business Continuity field in order to deal with the full spectrum of threats,” he remarked.

He was speaking as chief guest at the inaugural session of “Safety and Security Week-2017” being organised at SBP and SBPBSC, here on Monday wherein a number of exercises, trainings and information sessions will be conducted by field experts to educate SBP and SBPBSC employees on necessary safety and security procedures.

Highlighting the importance of safety and security, the governor said that a safe and secure workplace environment plays a vital role in ensuring smooth operations of an institution.  “SBP has started to build its capacity to effectively deal with any adverse situation and resume operations without any major interruption.” he added. Adding further, he stated that the bank has also fulfilled its regulatory responsibility and issued guidelines for all banks to strengthen the overall resilience of the financial sector.

State Bank had also invited speakers representing Citizens Police Liaison Committee (CPLC), Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA), Sindh and Pakistan Red Crescent Society. Mr. Ozair representing CPLC stated that his organization is working to eradicate crimes by bridging the gap between citizens and law enforcement agencies. Dr. Rizwana Wasif of Red Crescent demonstrated how to provide first aid in emergency whereas Syed Salman Shah representing PDMA spoke on roles and responsibilities of PDMA in the province of Sindh.

Qasim Nawaz, Managing Director SBP-Banking Services Corporation, in his welcome note stated that in view of emerging safety and security concern, we should not ignore the importance of safety and security in our daily life, particularly at our workplace.

Other speakers from State Bank were Commodore (R) Kamran Khan, Director Internal Bank Security and Mr. Asif Mahmood, Director, Strategic Planning, who gave an overview of the current security environment in Pakistan and explained salient features of the safety and security policy implemented in SBP and its offices across the country.