Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets chair Laura van Geest argues in FD column that resilience requires more than buffers and standard stress tests

The Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets published a Financieele Dagblad column by chair Laura van Geest arguing that the traditional, buffer-driven view of resilience no longer fits today’s threat landscape and can create a false sense of security and misallocated priorities. She calls on businesses, supervisors, politicians and citizens to work together on a broader concept of resilience. The piece contends that standard stress tests geared to familiar shocks may be insufficient in a world of shifting geopolitical assumptions, cyber risks and potentially unorthodox policy and market dynamics. It advocates testing hypothetical and “unthinkable” scenarios, including maximum-stress and black-swan narratives, and links operational resilience increasingly to cybersecurity, noting that the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act improves visibility on incidents and significant providers and that “friendly hackers” can help test real-world robustness. The column also highlights Europe’s reliance on US technology firms and the physical dimension of resilience, including where and how cloud data and data centres are located and secured, and the robustness of energy and telecom networks, while urging greater consumer preparedness such as avoiding misinformation-driven herd behaviour and maintaining basic payment contingencies.