Information Concerning KISA’s Business Continuity Plan
KISA has developed a business continuity plan to address how it will respond to events of varying scope that may significantly disrupt its business, in an effort to provide continuity of critical business functions. Such critical business functions include entering of client orders, completing securities transactions and providing clients with access to their cash and securities. Since the timing and impact of disasters and disruptions is unpredictable, KISA will have to be flexible in responding to actual events as they occur. With that in mind, we are providing you with this information on our Business Continuity Plan, which is designed to describe the actions KISA will take in the event of a significant business disruption.
Contact – If after a significant business disruption, you cannot contact us as you usually do, you should call our general number (212) 247-4368. If you cannot access KISA through either of those means, you should visit KISA’s website at https://kisamerica.com/.
KISA’s Business Continuity Plan – KISA plans to quickly recover and resume business operations after a significant business disruption and respond by safeguarding it employees and property, making a financial and operational assessment, protecting the firm’s books and records, and allowing its customers to transact business. In short, KISA’s business continuity plan is designed to permit the firm to resume operations as quickly as possible, given the scope and severity of the significant business disruption.
KISA’s Business Continuity Plan is designed to address the following: Data backup and recovery; all mission critical systems; financial and operational assessments; alternative communications with customers, employees, and regulators; alternate physical location of employees; critical supplier, contractor, bank and counterparty impact; regulatory reporting; and assuring our customers prompt access to their funds and securities if we are unable to continue our business. KISA backs up important records in a geographically diverse area from that of KISA’s own servers. While every emergency situation poses unique challenges, based on external factors such as time of day and the nature or severity of the disruption, the objective of KISA’s Business Continuity Plan is to restore its own operations and be able to complete existing transactions and accept new transactions and payments within four (4) hours. Customer orders and requests for funds could be delayed during this period.
Varying disruptions – Significant business disruptions can vary in their scope and severity, such as those that may affect only the building housing KISA’s operations, or the business district where KISA is located, the city where KISA is located, or the whole region. Within each of these areas, the severity of the disruption can also vary from minimal to severe. KISA’s recovery time objective for business resumption, including any necessary relocation of personnel or technology, is four (4) hours. This recovery objective may be negatively affected by the unavailability of external resources and circumstances beyond KISA’s control. In particular, while KISA’s business continuity plan has been reasonably designed to allow the firm to operate during emergency incidents of varying scope, these potential incidents are unpredictable. KISA has no control over certain infrastructure such as utilities, communication networks, transportation, and third-party providers upon which KISA may rely during an emergency. In the event of a significant disruption, we plan to notify you through our website, https://kisamerica.com/. If the significant business disruption is so severe that it prevents KISA from remaining in business, the firm will assure our customers prompt access to their funds and securities.
For more information – if you have questions about KISA’s business continuity planning, please contact the firm at (212) 314-0687.