The Bank of England announced that the Cross-Market Operational Resilience Group, which it co-chairs with UK Finance, completed SIMEX26 on Oct. 8, 2026. The biennial exercise tested how the financial authorities and 38 of the largest and most systemically important banks and market infrastructure operators would coordinate their response to a global disruption of cloud-based services. Participants exercised the sector’s response arrangements, including a live meeting of the Bank-chaired Cross Market Business Continuity Group. The scenario was not based on specific threat information. The Bank expects firms to act on lessons from the exercise to strengthen their resilience and response to severe operational and cyber incidents, complementing broader UK work on critical third-party oversight, resilience testing and incident coordination.
Bank of England-led group tests response of 38 systemic banks and market infrastructure operators to global cloud disruption
The Bank of England-led Cross-Market Operational Resilience Group tested how authorities and 38 systemic banks and market infrastructure operators would respond to a global cloud services disruption. The Bank expects firms to use the findings to strengthen their resilience and response to severe operational and cyber incidents.