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The Cross-Market Operational Resilience Group completed SIMEX26 on 8 October, rehearsing how the UK financial sector would respond to a simulated global cloud services disruption. The exercise involved 38 major banks and market infrastructure operators, alongside financial authorities; the Bank of England says firms are expected to act on the exercise to strengthen resilience.
The Cross-Market Operational Resilience Group (CMORG) completed a UK-wide financial sector simulation on 8 October 2026, rehearsing a coordinated response to a hypothetical global disruption to cloud services. The exercise brought together 38 major banks and market infrastructure operators with financial authorities to test how the sector could manage severe disruption and maintain essential services.
The biennial exercise, called SIMEX26, was chaired by the Bank of England and UK Finance, with participation from HM Treasury, the Financial Conduct Authority and the wider financial sector. The London Stock Exchange Group hosted the exercise, which was opened by Economic Secretary to the Treasury Lucy Rigby. Participants worked through a wide-ranging crisis-management scenario rather than responding to a real outage.
The exercise also included a live meeting of the Bank-chaired Cross Market Business Continuity Group, which provides strategic direction for the sector’s collective response to systemic incidents. The Bank said it expects firms to take action based on SIMEX26 to further strengthen their ability to respond to severe operational and cyber scenarios. It did not set out specific actions or a deadline in the announcement.
The scenario was not based on specific threat information, according to the Bank’s notes to editors. Instead, it was developed with industry experts. The announcement describes the exercise and its participants but does not report detailed findings, identify individual firms’ performance or say whether any particular weakness was found.
Preparing for Cloud Service Disruption
Cloud services support many organisations and systems, so a disruption affecting providers could create challenges that extend beyond one financial firm. The exercise’s focus on a global cloud disruption reflects the need for banks, market infrastructure operators and authorities to practise working together when services are under pressure.
Financial firms provide services that households and businesses rely on, while market infrastructure supports the functioning of financial markets. A coordinated response can help authorities and companies share information, set priorities and manage disruption across the sector. The Bank said the exercise was intended to strengthen preparedness; the announcement does not establish how firms would perform during an actual outage or quantify the exercise’s effect on resilience.
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SIMEX Builds on Earlier Exercises
SIMEX is part of CMORG’s programme to rehearse responses to challenging scenarios and develop the UK financial sector’s collective operational resilience. The Bank says CMORG identifies systemic risks, develops sector-wide mitigation approaches and supports the sharing of capabilities and knowledge among firms and authorities.
Earlier exercises in 2022 and 2024 considered a cyberattack against a major bank and disruption to critical infrastructure outside the financial sector. SIMEX26 adds a cloud-services scenario to that programme. The group’s Sector Response Framework sets out the approach for a sector-wide response to systemic incidents and is exercised through SIMEX.
The Bank also cited recent work on third-party resilience, secure innovation involving AI and other emerging technologies, and cyber preparedness, response and recovery. These areas provide relevant context for the exercise, but the release does not describe them as specific results of SIMEX26.
“That preparedness is essential to safeguarding financial stability.”
— Katharine Braddick, Bank of England Deputy Governor for Prudential Regulation and chief executive of the Prudential Regulation Authority
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Exercise Findings Not Yet Published
The Bank’s announcement does not provide specific findings, lessons or performance assessments from the exercise. It is not clear which response challenges participants encountered, what improvements individual firms may need to make, or how the authorities will assess follow-up actions. The release also does not name the cloud services or providers represented in the scenario; it says only that the exercise concerned a global disruption.
SIMEX26 was a simulation, not a test of an actual outage. The Bank said the scenario was not informed by specific threat intelligence, so the exercise should not be read as evidence that a particular cloud incident is expected or underway.
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Firms to Apply Exercise Lessons
The next stated step is for participating firms to take action based on the exercise and strengthen their resilience and response capabilities. The Bank has not announced a timetable, named required changes or described a public reporting process for those actions.
CMORG’s wider programme and the Sector Response Framework remain the channels for developing the sector’s collective approach to systemic disruption. Further detail on specific lessons or follow-up measures would clarify how SIMEX26 changes firms’ preparations; no such findings or schedule were included in the announcement.
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Key Questions
What was SIMEX26?
SIMEX26 was CMORG’s biennial crisis-management simulation. It rehearsed how the UK financial sector and authorities might respond to a hypothetical global disruption to cloud-based services.
Who took part in the exercise?
The Bank of England and UK Finance chaired the exercise, which involved 38 major banks and market infrastructure operators, HM Treasury, the Financial Conduct Authority and other financial sector participants.
Was there a real cloud outage?
No real outage was reported. The Bank described SIMEX26 as a simulation exercise and said its scenario was not based on specific threat information.
What happens after the simulation?
The Bank expects firms to take action based on the exercise to strengthen resilience. It has not announced specific actions, deadlines or published findings.
Source: primary
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