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FedACH^® Services Business Continuity Guide

 

Overview - Disruption to Federal Reserve FedACH Services

The Federal Reserve Banks' Automated Clearing House (ACH) service, known as the FedACH Service, is a nationwide network that facilitates the exchange of funds and payment-related information between financial institutions, the U.S. Treasury and other Reserve Banks. The ACH system is a batch processing, store and forward system. ACH processes both debits and credits in a net settlement fashion after files are received. This is in contrast to the real-time gross settlement processing of the Fedwire^® services. Access to FedACH is available via various channels including: FedLine Web^®, FedLine Advantage^®, FedLine Command^® and FedLine Direct^®.

You may view the current status of FedACH processing by accessing the Service Status page at any time.

Disruptions to FedACH Services will typically entail two scenarios:

Central Application Disruptions

The Federal Reserve has centralized its application servers at various sites. Complete redundancy is available at each site to support connections to critical applications, including FedACH. In the event of an application service disruption involving FedACH, the processing of ACH files and the associated financial accounting entries may be delayed, with services resumed as quickly as possible at the contingency sites.

Building Outages

In the case of events rendering buildings inaccessible, the FedACH application should not be impacted. Geographically dispersed back up facilities will be prepared to handle operational functions while personnel relocate to the alternate processing locations.

Preparing for FedACH Services Disruptions

Financial institutions are encouraged to become familiar with the Federal Reserve Banks' FedACH business continuity plan. To minimize a disruption of service, financial institutions are encouraged to implement the following:

• Bookmark the Service Status page and refer to it regularly.
• Conduct periodic training to ensure that personnel are familiar with the information included in the plan.
• Identify key personnel to communicate with Federal Reserve personnel and disseminate information as quickly as possible during service disruptions.
• Have the business continuity plan and contact information readily available for access by appropriate personnel during service disruptions.

Financial institutions with electronic connections to the FedACH service are invited to participate in FedACH application contingency tests. During these tests, customers test their ability to resume processing of their transactions following a FedACH application recovery simulation.

For detailed information regarding the resilience of FedACH, please review the FedACH Resilience Statement (PDF).

For more information about contingency planning for FedMail, please review the FedMail Contingency Guide for FedACH Services (PDF).

Contingency guides for FedACH Services for the FedLine Web and FedLine Advantage access solutions are available via the EUAC Center.

During a FedACH Service Disruption - What to Expect

If you suspect a disruption to FedACH operations, it is not necessary to contact us. Be assured that the Federal Reserve Banks and their personnel are working diligently to reinstate service as quickly as possible.

During a FedACH Service Disruption - What You Should Do

• Notify all pertinent personnel at your institution of the outage.
• Refer to the Service Status page to obtain the current operational status and other instructions.

If a disaster occurs during midday processing, financial institutions should attempt to reconcile at the file level, to the point of failure before additional files are transmitted.

For Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection service disruptions

If your Internet connection becomes unavailable, your VPN device may have an auto dial backup feature or you may configure the device to connect via a secondary Internet Service Provider (ISP).

When Internet connectivity is restored, dial backup connections will revert back to connecting via the Internet automatically, and secondary ISP connectivity will remain in place until your organization reverts back to your primary ISP.

For Dedicated Wide Area Network (WAN) connection service disruptions

Financial institutions do not need to do anything to re-establish communications. Once host processing is restored, communication connections will be re-established, with all data security procedures remaining in effect.

For Dial FedLine service disruptions

Financial institutions do not need to do anything to re-establish communications. Updates and instructions will be provided via recorded messages, fax, and/or direct telephone calls.

Note: Upon the restoration of normal operations, if financial institutions cannot complete transactions, they should contact their FedACH Central Operations Support site:

Contact Information

Contact FedACH Central Operations Support. Toll free numbers located at
http://www.frbservices.org/contactus/fedach_operations.html

After a service disruption

• All input and output files should be retained for possible retransmission.
• All out-of-balance transactions should be retained until reconcilement is possible and completed. At the resumption of service, account balances will be based on Federal Reserve records. It is the responsibility of the financial institutions to resend ACH files previously sent but not shown on Federal Reserve records.

Recovery Timeframe for FedACH Services

Disruptions to FedACH Services are categorized into two levels:

Level 1 – Same-day resumption of services: this disruption level is expected to be in effect for a period not exceeding 8 hours. FedACH Services are expected to resume during the same accounting day.

Level 2 – Relocation of Federal Reserve operations: this disruption level is expected to last for more than 8 hours. It may require the relocation of personnel to back-up sites.

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