Fed finalizes rule for financial market utilities

The Federal Reserve Board has announced it has approved a final rule that updates risk management requirements for certain systemically important financial market utilities (FMUs) supervised by the Board. FMUs provide essential infrastructure to clear and settle payments and other financial transactions to allow financial markets and the broader economy to function effectively.

The final updates provide additional clarity and specificity to existing requirements in four key areas of operational risk management: incident management and notification; business continuity management and planning; third-party risk management; and review and testing of operational risk management measures. For example, the updates explicitly require FMUs to establish an incident management framework and emphasize the need for FMUs to continue to advance their cyber resilience capabilities.

The final updates are substantively similar to the proposal and largely consistent with existing measures that FMUs take to comply with the current requirements.

FMUs subject to the rule must be in compliance with certain updates by 90 days and all updates by 180 days after publication in the Federal Register.