The possibility of their existence power outages triggered a wave of panic in banks across Europe who have pulled out of their drawers the plans they have adopted or developed to deal with the pandemic.

Discussions have already begun in the UK with banks on how they will operate this winter, with remote work at the forefront of the proposed measures, Bloomberg reports. At the same time, financial groups have turned to South Africa and the measures being taken by local businesses in a country where power outages are common. Lowering the temperature in offices and offices, metering the use of light is clearly something that will be implemented at the European level, but a possible power outage is fraught with a very big risk: causing problems in the data centers of banks, a possibility that will have catastrophic consequences , since the entire activity of a banking organization depends on them.

According to Andrew Rogan, director of business sustainability for the UK Financial Services Association, UK Finance, which is coordinating discussions in London, all banks, regardless of their size, are focused on tackling the energy crisis. At present, he emphasizes, there is no panic, as each bank is trying to ensure its uninterrupted work. In the UK, the government is making plans for the winter, when gas shortages will cut off power to businesses and homes. France, for its part, will require businesses, households and local authorities to reduce their consumption to avoid the holidays. At the same time, Germany is nationalizing energy giant Uniper to prevent it from going bankrupt and collapsing its energy sector (since many talk about the possibility of what happened to Lehman Brothers in 2007/2008). For large multinational banks, the problem is even more acute, since they have branches and offices in various cities of the Old Continent. As the head of JP Morgan in Germany Stefan Behr, large offices have backup generators, but there is the possibility of transferring staff to one country in case problems worsen in another.

They are pulling pandemic emergency measures out of the boxes, considering the South African model with frequent power outages.

In Switzerland, UBS decided to drastically reduce the temperature in its buildings. In Denmark, banks are considering supplying workers with blankets, and Deutsche Bank announced in the summer it was suspending air conditioning and turning off hot water at its offices in Germany. Major banks have generators and other energy sources that can keep them running for 72 hours, according to UK Finance. As its head Andrei Rogan emphasizes, sites with a lower risk of outages are being considered for the creation of business centers, and the pandemic and their experience, he added, have made banks more prepared.

Banks in South Africa have a lot of experience with this as power outages are common. Investec has installed several uninterruptible power systems and has back-up oil generators primarily to protect data centers, according to COO Stuart Spencer. The company contracted three electrical engineers in Johannesburg, and oil arrived for a few days to run the generators. “The data center is the backbone of a bank’s survival,” he said in an interview. “If the air conditioner is not working, the servers can overheat, shut down uncontrollably, and restarting them is a real nightmare,” he said.