Our plans are designed to ensure that our business will continue to function with little or no disruption, that clients’ assets will be secure and accessible, and that clients will be able to reach us regardless of the scope of the situation. iA Private Wealth Inc. has developed a Business Continuity Plan (‘BCP’) on how we will respond to events that significantly disrupt our business. Since the timing and impact of disasters and disruptions is unpredictable, we 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 BCP.
Should our primary location be affected we will move the business to our alternate site location where we are able to serve our clients as effectively as we do at our primary site. Calls and email to any office will be re-routed to the alternate sites where we have access to the critical systems we are providing in our primary location where we will continue to provide the best service possible. In the unlikely event that you cannot access us through our telephone lines or email, our website will be updated with further information at www.iaprivatewealth.ca.
We plan to quickly recover and resume business operations after a significant business disruption and respond by safeguarding our employees and property, making a financial and operational assessment, protecting the firm’s books and records, and allowing our clients to transact business. In short, our business continuity plan is designed to permit our firm to resume operations as quickly as possible, given the scope and severity of the significant business disruption.
Our BCP addresses: data back up and recovery; all mission critical systems; financial and operational assessments; alternative communications with clients, employees, and regulators; alternate physical location of employees; critical supplier, contractor, bank and counter-party impact; regulatory reporting; and assuring our clients prompt access to their funds and securities if we are unable to continue our business.
Our clearing firm, National Bank Independent Network, maintains copies of our important client records. While every emergency situation poses unique problems based on external factors, such as time of day and the severity of the disruption, we have been advised by our clearing firm that its objective is to restore its own operations and be able to complete existing transactions and accept new transactions and payments within a matter of hours. Your orders and requests for funds and securities could be delayed during this period.
Significant business disruptions can vary in their scope, such as only our firm, a single building housing our firm, the business district where our firm is located, the city where we are located, or the whole region. Within each of these areas, the severity of the disruption can also vary from minimal to severe. In a disruption to only our firm or a building housing our firm, we will transfer our operations to a local site when needed and expect to recover and resume business within 24 hours. We plan to continue in business, and notify you through our web site at www.iaprivatewealth.ca. If telephone service has not been interrupted, all calls to our main line (514) 499-1066 and other primary numbers will be call forwarded to our alternate location. If the significant business disruption is so severe that it affects our city, or region or it prevents us from remaining in business, we will assure our clients’ prompt access to their funds and securities.
If you have questions about our business continuity planning, you can contact us at (514) 499-1066 or by e-mailing your questions to info@iagto.ca.