BICUC

Fellow financial institution facility managers, I'm looking for some benchmarking and would appreciate your feedback.

We're reviewing our procedures for access to Member Centers/ Branches before the official opens "all clear" is given, and I'm curious how other financial institutions handle this.

A few questions:

• Are vendors, contractors, or maintenance personnel permitted to work in the branch or member center before all clear, or are they also required to wait?
• Who is responsible for issuing the all clear at your organization (Security, Facilities, Branch Management, etc.)?
• Do you have a written policy or best practice governing access before opening?

I'm also interested in how your institution handles power outages:

• Do your member centers remain open during a power outage, or do you close until power is restored?
• Do you have backup generators, UPS systems, or other contingency plans?
• If you remain open, what functions can continue, and what criteria trigger a decision to close?

I'm not necessarily looking for the "right" answer-I'm simply trying to understand how other financial institutions approach these situations so we can compare our practices with industry norms.

I appreciate any insight or lessons learned you're willing to share. Thank you!

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Andrew Moore CFM , FMP
Facilities Manager
Wright-Patt Credit Union
Beavercreek Ohio
amoore@wpcu.coop
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Hi Andrew,

We have trusted vendors with building access. They can only enter via fob during open hours with the exception of the cleaning crew, who work after hours and can disarm non-sensitive areas. Our opening/closing teller teams perform a walk through and signal the all-clear while one team member remains outside to serve as a lookout. There is a phone call and code word system that they use if that walk through takes longer than usual. 

We have a generator at our main office, but that is mainly in place to sustain the server. If power will be out for a while, we close all affected locations until service is restored and stable. We have a BCP team that works in conjunction with leadership to make the final call on closures and timelines. That team has members from multiple departments, so it provides a nice wide scope. We also have offline receipts in the teller department. Those come out when we have brief outages or network interruptions.

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Ben Bryant
Facility Manager
U of I Community Credit Union
Champaign IL
217-689-8735
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Andrew, 

Here in Australia, within my remit we look after a large financial institution managing a geographically dispersed portfolio of 500,000+sqm across 450+ branches and office locations, our approach is largely risk based while balancing security, operational efficiency, customer experience, and contractor needs. For contractors and vendors who require frequent or daily access to our sites, such as cleaning providers, we generally provide managed access arrangements and trust based protocols (inc police checks, probity clearance etc) appropriate to the nature of the service being delivered. Obviously arrnageing guards or constant supervision for these routine services would be operationally impractical across a portfolio of our scale.

For maintenance contractors and project vendors, access requirements are assessed based on the nature, location, timing, and risk profile of the works. Where works can reasonably be completed during business hours under the presence of branch colleagues, we typically utilise this approach. Where works are disruptive to customers or our colleagues, or require access to sensitive areas, involve multiple entry points, or are undertaken outside business hours, additional security controls may be introduced, including guarding services.

Regarding "all clear" processes for all property related incidents, responsibility typically sits with the Property function in partnership with branch operations, with requirements varying depending on the nature of the threat, event, or business continuity scenario.

For power outages, our response is similarly risk based. Decisions are influenced by the severity and expected duration of the outage, impacts to customer service, safety considerations, physical security systems, and the availability of business continuity measures. We are leveraging AI to help with feasibility on locations where investment is warranted for branches to put on UPS, i.e. repeated power outages, El Nino impacted regions etc. Some of our locations we have installed plug-in generator points as result of long drawn outages. The decision to remain open or temporarily close is generally based on maintaining safe and secure operations for both customers and colleagues, our Property will provide an 'all clear' in consultation with the business who occupy these premises. .

Overall, our experience is that there is rarely a one size fits all model. Portfolio scale, branch design, security availability, and operational requirements all play a role in determining the most appropriate access and security controls.

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Kyle Swinden
Head of, Property Services
National Australia Bank
VIC, Australia
+61414661611
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