In the wake of recent IT failures, such as those experienced by the faulty CrowdStrike update, operational resilience has become a crucial focus for professionals across various sectors, especially within the financial services sphere.

As financial institutions navigate increasing disruptions - from system outages to cyber threats - the necessity for robust bank and payments connectivity services is becoming paramount.

Additionally, at least 158 banking IT failure incidents – over 33 days’ worth of disruption in total – impacted the ability of millions of customers to access and use those services between January 2023 and February 2025, according to data published by the Treasury Committee in March 2025.

These services are not merely supplemental components of business continuity; they form the backbone that enables financial institutions to maintain functionality during crises, ultimately securing financial stability. With cross-departmental ramifications for heads of IT/technology, operations, treasury, payments, and risk management, the pressure to align is on.

The importance of operational resilience as a key requirement is being amplified and enforced by regulatory changes in the UK and Europe—namely, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority’s Operational Resilience Mandate, which has a 31 March 2025 deadline, and the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) framework deadline, which was in January 2025.

However, a recent poll by The Payments Association in October found that 50% of financial institutions in the UK were in progress to meet operational resilience regulations, 33% were fully compliant and confident, and a worrying 17% were still unsure where to begin.

For that 17%, a good place to start is by investing in the implementation of SaaS and replacing legacy infrastructure and systems. In fact, KPMG’s Payments Modernisation report in 2023 said that in the UK, the average investment in a payments modernisation programme was £27 million. Of those respondents, 58% cite the motivation as being able to keep up to date on regulatory changes because business continuity would be impossible otherwise.

 

Are You Ready for the Unexpected?

Operational resilience is defined as a financial institution’s ability to prevent, adapt, respond to, recover from, and learn from operational disruptions. These disruptions may arise from various sources, including external threats like cyberattacks or internal issues like system updates that inadvertently crash software, as seen recently with CrowdStrike.

While CrowdStrike’s incident was managed quickly, it underscores a broader point: every financial institution, even those seemingly fortified against disruptions, must question the resilience of payment processes. Failure to maintain continuous payment connectivity could lead to significant losses—both reputational and financial.

A straw poll of the audience of the recent Bottomline webinar, ‘Adopting a Robust Approach to Business Continuity’, found that the biggest concerns were related to reputational damage and making staff or supplier payments. Collecting money was the third most important concern.

 

Operational Resilience Explained in 6 Use Cases

Bottomline is highly active in the operational resilience sector, and offers a variety of real-world use cases that help illustrate the importance of operational resilience, as follows:

Use Case 1: Your banking/financial service provider or normal payment channels are unable to process your instructions.

Solution: Bottomline can easily switch to utilising alternative banks or payment channels through our dedicated payment platform of connectivity services.

Use Case 2: Your back-office system fails and cannot produce payments in the required format.

Solution: Bottomline data transformation services can be leveraged to bridge the gap with real-time data transformation capabilities that ensure seamless conversion of payment information into the formats needed to assist in minimising interruptions in transaction processing.

Use Case 3: Imagine a failure in a Payment flow (Bacs, FPS, or CHAPS). This needs to be viewed across the full payment journey; back-office failure, solution provider failure, infrastructure failure, bank failure, and connectivity failure. Therefore, you need an alternative mechanism for making critical payments.

Solution: Bottomline’s alternative payment connectivity services serve as a vital safeguard against system outages. They allow the IT/technology department to divert payments based on value or destination account through alternative payment rails. This flexibility is essential for maintaining uninterrupted service delivery.

Use Case 4:  Your financial institution cannot route payments to the systems or banks required.

Solution: Leverage flexible multi-channel and connectivity support, including different infrastructure models, to provide resilience should one infrastructure fail or suffer a cyber-attack.

Use Case 5: Your product roadmap is so busy that your financial institution struggles with regulatory/compliance requirements whilst juggling customer demand and mitigating fraud.

Solution: Bottomline’s scalable solutions allow financial institutions to streamline operations, making it simpler to manage different payment methods and methods of enhancing resilience. In addition to payment verification solutions such as Verification of Payee, Confirmation of Payee, and Bank Account Verification, there is the capability to incorporate secure payment technologies that include behaviour and transaction monitoring. These capabilities support anomaly detection in elevated-risk scenarios following system outages.

Use Case 6: Your financial institution struggles to maintain cash flow operations when a disruption occurs.

Solution: Bottomline ensures that payables and receivables processes are resilient. Financial institutions can monitor real-time data to anticipate cash availability and manage liquidity risk effectively using real-time balance capabilities.

 

Building Resilience

Financial institutions can fortify their operational resilience in payments by:

  • Utilising Diverse Payment Channels: Broadening the array of payment options available enhances resilience by providing fail-safes during system failures.
  • Investing in SaaS Platforms: Transitioning to unified API-enabled SaaS solutions enables continuous monitoring and rapid recovery mechanisms, allowing for a prompt response during operational disruptions. SaaS platforms also streamline compliance with evolving regulations, reducing the burden on in-house teams.

 

Prioritising Resilience

Integration of bank and payment connectivity services into a financial institution’s operational resilience strategy is indispensable in today’s interconnected and fast-paced business environment.

By preparing for the unexpected and investing in the right technologies for compliance and multilateral payment platforms, financial institutions can protect themselves from the immediate impacts of disruptions and build a foundation for sustainable operations and long-term stability.

Those prioritising operational resilience and having a clear and immediate plan of action will undoubtedly gain a competitive edge, ensuring they survive and thrive amid uncertainty.

Book a 1:1 strategic workshop with Bottomline.