Benchmark Securities, LLC (“Benchmark”) has developed a Business Continuity Plan regarding how we will respond to events that significantly disrupt our business. Since the timing and impact of disasters and disruptions is unpredictable, we will have to be flexible in responding to actual events as they occur. With that in mind, we are providing you with this information on our Business Continuity Plan.
Contacting Us
If after a significant business disruption you cannot contact us as you usually do at info@bmksllc.com or 407-960-
2700, you should call our alternate number at 407-252-7354.
Our Business Continuity Plan
We plan to quickly recover and resume business operations after a significant business disruption and respond by safeguarding our employees and property, making a financial and operational assessment, protecting the firm’s books and records, and allowing our clients and investors to transact business. In short, our Business Continuity Plan
is designed to permit our firm to resume operations as quickly as possible, given the scope and severity of the significant business disruption.
Our Business Continuity Plan Addresses:
Data back-up and recovery; all mission critical systems; financial and operational assessments; alternative communications with customers, employees, and regulators; alternate physical location of employees; critical supplier, contractor, bank and counter-party impact; regulatory reporting; and assuring our customers prompt access to their funds and securities, if we are unable to continue our business.
We replicate data from our office to the cloud of a third party. All critical data is replicated across multiple database servers in a SQL cluster environment and back up daily to a SAN device and backup archives are maintained for five years. While every emergency situation poses unique problems based on external factors, such as time of day and the severity of the disruption, our objective is to restore our own operations and be able to restore all existing data in 1 business day. Your communications with us may be disrupted until such time as our data is restored.
Varying Disruptions
Significant business disruptions can vary in their scope, such as only our firm, a single building housing our firm, the business district where our firm is located, the city where we are located, or the whole region. Within each of these areas, the severity of the disruption can also vary from minimal to severe. In a disruption to only our firm or a building
housing our firm, we will transfer our operations to a local site when needed and expect to recover and resume business within 4 business hours. In a disruption affecting our business district, city, or region we will transfer our operations to a site outside of the affected area, and recover and resume business within 1 business day.
In either situation, we plan to continue in business, transfer operations to our alternative if necessary, and notify you through our client and associate emergency number, 407-252-7354. If the significant business disruption is so severe that it prevents us from remaining in business, we will assure our client’s prompt access to their records on file with us at the time of the disruption.
A copy of our plan can also be found on our website: www.benchmarksecuritiesllc.com. For more information, or if you have questions about our business continuity planning, you can contact us at 407-960-2700 or info@bmksllc.com.