How do you handle a SWIFT outage?
A core Corporate Treasury interview question — asked in analyst and associate interviews across IB, PE, and the Big 4.
THE SHORT ANSWER
(1) Activate BCP: manual payment procedures via bank portals. (2) Prioritize: salary payments and critical supplier payments first. (3) Communicate to affected subsidiaries. (4) Monitor bank connectivity every 30 minutes. (5) Once restored: reconcile all manual payments. (6) Post-incident: review BCP adequacy, consider multi-channel connectivity.
WHAT INTERVIEWERS LISTEN FOR
- ✓Activate BCP procedures
- ✓Prioritize critical payments
- ✓Communicate with subsidiaries
- ✓Monitor connectivity every 30 min
- ✓Reconcile manual payments post-outage
COMMON MISTAKES
- ✗Waiting for SWIFT to fix without action
- ✗No prioritization of payments
- ✗Failing to communicate internally
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