The sheer mention of the term "Consent Order’ fills banking executives and board members of financial institutions with anxiety and regret. Consent Orders (CO) are binding legal orders issued by financial regulators that force receiving institutions to formally address significant violations of regulatory standards. Severe Enforcement Actions (EAs), such as COs against medium and large US institutions were a rarity prior to the onset of the financial crisis starting in 2008. This changed in the aftermath of the financial crisis when regulators levied large numbers of EAs against major banks.

When stress, disruption, and uncertainty strike, are you prepared to weather the storm, and are you set up to turn adversity into opportunity? Operational Resilience (OR) has emerged as an industry hot-topic almost overnight as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic of 2020 has profoundly impacted our global communities. The need for social distancing has impacted every aspect of our daily lives from the way we work, how our children attend school, and how we socialize with family, friends, and colleagues. Besides holding up to COVID economic shocks, including record market drawdowns, volumes, and volatility, the fact that capital markets operations carried on without major disruption is a testament to industry resilience. Such results were made possible through past business continuity planning and more recent investments in remote working and collaborative infrastructures.