National Bank of Pakistan selects IBM for Business Continuity Services

KARACHI: National Bank of Pakistan NBP has selected IBM (NYSE:IBM) for Business Continuity and Resiliency Services (BCRS) to ensure uninterrupted services and protection of crucial data in the event of a disruption.

The new agreement enables NBP to meet stringent resiliency requirements of State Bank of Pakistan and reduce need for split-second decision making during an emergency, says IBM press release.

"NBP ITD took landmark initiative in June 2011 to consolidate all twelve regional centers into a centralized location. To mitigate risks of having all data in a centralized environment and to have proper disaster recovery, business continuity we selected IBM BCRS.

We selected vendor that has relevant expertise and capability to provide business continuity services required by EBS" said Mahmood Siddiqui, CIO of NBP. IBM solution will equip NBP with an improved processing capability, enable bank to run its core banking and payment solutions applications with a round the clock availability and allow it to meet challenges of any site issues through a disaster recovery setup. IBM will also ensure highly available IT infrastructure and providing NBP a Disaster Recovery Site – as mandated by SBP.

IBM is driving strategic use of technology inside banks like NBP to gain real-time visibility of risk positions in order to more quickly and nimbly respond to changes in market conditions. "Companies are increasingly turning to IBM's Business Continuity & Resiliency Services to plan, implement and manage IT operational risk management strategies," said Adnan Siddiqui, Country Sales Manager, IBM Pakistan.

"By helping reduce impact of particular risks, IBM is helping to bring peace of mind to NBP and its customers."

Copyright PPI (Pakistan Press International), 2011