Business Continuity Plan
Summary Disclosure of Business Continuity Plan
Hines Private Wealth Solutions LLC (“Hines PWS”) has developed a comprehensive Business Continuity Plan (“BCP”) on how we will respond to a significant business disruption. Since the timing and impact of disasters and disruptions are unpredictable, we will have to be flexible when responding to actual events as they occur. With that in mind, we are providing you with this information on our business continuity plan.
Our Business Continuity Plan
The policy of Hines PWS is to respond to a Significant Business Disruption (“SBD”) by safeguarding employees’ lives and firm property, making a financial and operational assessment, quickly recovering and resuming operations, protecting the firm’s books and records, and allowing our customers to transact business as soon as possible following such SBD. The plan is updated as needed and is subject to testing, evaluation, and senior management review on an ongoing basis. Our BCP addresses: data back-up and recovery (hard copy and electronic); all mission critical systems; financial and operational assessments; alternate communications with customers; alternate communications with employees; alternate physical location of employees; critical business constituents, banks, and counter-party impact; regulatory reporting; communications with regulators; and procedures to ensure our customers’ prompt access to their funds and securities in the event that the we determine we are unable to continue our business.
Business Disruption Scenarios
Under most scenarios, we expect to continue doing business and resume operations with minimal service impacts. However, under certain scenarios, the time that it takes Hines PWS to recover and to resume operations may be significantly increased depending on the extent of disruption to our systems and the number of personnel affected. In the event of a disruption that affects our main office, such as power outage, we would activate the disaster routing plan for our phone system and move key personnel to a remote location. If this type of disruption takes place, we expect to recover and resume business within 24 hours. If a disruption is significant enough to affect the entire city or region, such as a hurricane, certain key employees will work remotely and certain operations and support services will be relocated to an alternate site outside of the affected area. If this type of disruption takes place, we expect to recover and resume business within 48 hours. In the situations described above, in light of the various types of disruptions that could take place and that every emergency poses unique problems, it may take longer to resume operations during any particular disruption. Our actual recovery time under these scenarios will depend on the nature and extent of the business disruption and could result in lengthier delays.
Contacting Us
If after a significant business disruption you cannot contact us as you usually do at 888.446.3773, you should go to our website at www.hinesprivatewealth.com/resources.