FIA Disaster Recovery Test

The annual exercise, an initiative of the FIA Market Technology division, is a coordinated industry effort to test business continuance, process recovery, connectivity and functionality between exchanges, clearinghouses and their member firms. Participants are provided with an opportunity to test the resiliency of their trading systems by conducting order entry from alternate recovery sites and verifying connectivity with exchanges and clearinghouses.

The test remains a valuable apparatus for the industry to assess its response to potential disaster scenarios and is an extraordinary example of a collaborative effort across the futures industry.

Participant calls occur at 11:00am ET (10:00am CT, 4:00pm London) on select Wednesdays, as noted below.


Jun 10 – Initial Participant Kickoff Call

Jul 8 – Monthly Participant Call

Jul 14 (Tue) – Test registration opened

Aug 10 (Mon) – Test script release (approximate)

Aug 12 – Webinar - presentation by the Exchanges and Clearing Houses

Aug 29 (Sat) – CME Group MQ Pre-Test (also on Sep 12)

Sep 12 (Sat) – Pre-Test Communications Testing

Sep 16 – Monthly Participant Call 

Sep 26 (Sat) – Pre-Test Communications Testing

Oct 7 – Weekly Participant Call

Oct 14 – Weekly Participant Call

Oct 16 – Test registration closes

Oct 23 (Fri) – All-Hands Call - Day Before the Test

Oct 24 (Sat) – Annual Industry Test Day

For exchanges and clearinghouses, this annual exercise helps your firm:

• Test connectivity to/from DR sites,
• Identify/refine pre-test and post-test procedures for connectivity testing,
• Tighten up and document their business continuity and system fail-over procedures,
• Improve test scripts and plans for future tests,
• Identify some internal single points of failure, and
• Better understand the need for cross-training.

Because of the test, participating firms indicate that the test helps:

• Exercise their business continuity/disaster recovery plans,
• Identify internal single points of failure,
• Test other in-house applications and systems at the same time,
• Tighten up and document their business continuity procedures,
• Better understand the need for cross-training, and
• Test connectivity with exchanges’ DR sites.

The FIA Market Technology Division successfully conducted its sixteenth (16th) annual continuity of business and disaster resilience test on October 26, 2019.

A full report on the test and its findings can be accessed here.

FIA DR Test Briefing - PowerPoint Slides

A presentation by the Exchanges and Clearinghouses that was held on August 12th, 2020. For PowerPoint slides, click here.

Exchange/Clearinghouse Contacts

Questions regarding testing specifics may be directed to respective Exchanges and Clearinghouses via the following contact information.

SIFMA Industry Test Information

Reg SCI entities will carry out testing requirements in parallel with the classic SIFMA industry test on the same day as FIA -- October 24th, 2020.
For more information, click here.