Risk Model / Risk Management

Internal controls

Like its participants, CDS Clearing operates in an environment where continuous adherence to standards and regulatory requirements is essential. As the central securities depository, clearing and settlement hub in Canada's capital markets, CDS Clearing's internal control structure is regularly revised and enhanced to ensure that it is consistent with leading practices and meets legislative and regulatory requirements.

The internal control framework is part of CDS's enterprise risk management program. This program applies an ongoing risk and control self-assessment process for the identification and management of risks and the implementation of suitable controls and safeguards. Information about changes to material risk exposures are reported regularly to senior management, the risk management committee and the audit/risk committee of the board.

Business continuity

An important measurement of security and reliability is the ability to recover quickly from interruption and to get back to full functionality. Through mirror imaging of data and its robust disaster recovery testing program, CDS continues to prove its ability to fully recover from any interruption to the operation of its systems. The testing program continues to evolve to provide a high level of confidence that service interruptions will be at a minimum if a disaster occurs.

To ensure business continuity in the event of the interruption of normal operations, a contingency architecture is in place at CDS consisting of policies, plans and contingency arrangements. In addition, CDS Clearing's critical operations are split between its regional offices to provide redundancy if one of the sites cannot continue to operate.

CDS will continue to improve its risk management approaches and capabilities as part of its commitment to providing world-class securities depository, clearing and settlement services to participants