The ‘human coronavirus with pandemic potential’ has been included as a Listed Human Disease under the Biosecurity Act 2015 (Cth). A Listed Human Disease is a human disease which is communicable and may cause significant harm to human health.

APRA’s Prudential Practice Guide PPG 233 deals with Pandemic Planning and Risk Management and the cost of absenteeism.

In his Opening Statement to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee on 6 March 2020, APRA Chairman Wayne Byres said:

“Another challenge for APRA has been understanding the potential impact of COVID-19 on the financial system. We have been actively monitoring the situation across three dimensions:

• over a month ago, we initiated our own crisis management arrangements, and began to take steps to protect our own operations and staff;

• we have been engaging with regulated institutions to understand how the virus might affect their operational ability, using our Pandemic Planning guidance as a benchmark to assess their readiness to cope with disruption, and are now undertaking some targeted testing of those plans; and
• we have been assessing the potential for any specific or broader economic impacts to affect the Australian financial system, particularly given recent volatility and stress in global financial markets.

In all these activities, we have been in regular contact with our domestic and international peers. At this point, our judgement is that:

• the regulated institutions at the core of the financial system are very alert to the risks to their businesses – both financial and operational – and initiating contingency planning to deal with a range of scenarios; and
• the financial system is positioned to handle short-term volatility in financial markets, but navigating any period of extended stress is inevitably something that will warrant considerable vigilance.”

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