Business Continuity Plan

Sowa Financial Group, Inc. has developed a business continuity plan to describe how we will respond to events that significantly disrupt our business. Because the timing and impact of disasters and disruptions are unpredictable, we need to be flexible in responding to events as they occur. With that in mind, we are providing you with the following information regarding our business continuity plan:

 

Conducting Business After a Significant Disruption

If, after a significant disruption, you cannot transact business as usual with us through your advisor at our office, by phone or by email, please call our broker dealer, Commonwealth Financial Network, at the following number:

  • Commonwealth Financial Network, Waltham, Massachusetts: (800) 251-0080

If the disruption is limited to your advisor’s local area, you may access your funds and securities and request transactions directly through Commonwealth’s Service Center.

 

Our Plan

Our business continuity plan addresses data backup and recovery; all critical systems; financial and operational assessments; alternative communications with customers, employees, and regulators; alternative physical locations of employees; critical supplier, contractor, bank, and counterparty impacts; regulator reporting; and more. After even a significant disruption, we intend to recover as quickly as possible and resume business operations. We will respond by safeguarding our employees and property, making a financial and operational assessment, protecting the firm’s books and records, and enabling our customers to transact business.

Sowa Financial Group, our broker dealer, Commonwealth Financial Network, and our clearing firm, National Financial Services LLC, back up our important records in separate locations. Although each emergency situation poses unique problems based on external factors (e.g., the time of day and severity of the disruption), our broker dealer and clearing firm have advised us that their objectives are to restore their own operations, to be able to complete existing transactions, and to accept new transactions and payments promptly. Please note, however, that even though it is Sowa Financial Group’s objective to restore our operations with a similar goal, your orders and requests for funds and securities may be delayed. Moreover, because the scope and impact of any disruption can vary significantly, certain elements of our and our broker dealer’s recovery plans may require longer recovery periods, which means that your requests for funds or for processing transactions could be further delayed. Be assured that, during any disruption, we will continually evaluate, estimate, and communicate the recovery time necessary to resume our operations.

 

Disruptions may vary

As previously noted, significant business disruptions can vary in scope. For example, they can impact only our firm, the business district where our firm is located, the city where we are located, or our entire region. In addition, within each location affected, the severity of the disruption can vary, from minimal to severe.

  • If a disruption affects only our firm or the building in which our firm is housed, we will transfer our operations to a remote disaster recovery site to which our main office phone number, (401) 434-8090, will be forwarded, and from which our office email address, [email protected], will be monitored and accessible to clients.

  • If a business disruption is so severe that it prevents us from remaining in business, we assure our customers that they will have prompt access to their funds and securities by whatever means available to us.

 

Important disclaimers

Sowa Financial Group will adhere to the procedures described in our business continuity plan and described above to the extent commercially reasonable and practicable under prevailing circumstances. There are, however, as previously noted, an incalculable number of events or circumstances that could result in a significant business disruption. Further, a significant disruption may result in varying degrees of harm to human life and regional or national infrastructure (e.g., power, transportation, communications), which could affect the firm’s recovery in a host of different ways.

In light of this, Sowa Financial Group, in its sole discretion, reserves the right to flexibly respond to any disruption in a situation-specific and prudent manner. Nothing in this disclosure document is intended to provide a guarantee or warrantee regarding the actions or performance of the firm, its computer systems, or its personnel in the event of a significant business disruption.

 

For more information

If you have questions about our business continuity plan, you may write to us at Sowa Financial Group, Inc., 14 Breakneck Hill Rd. Suite 202, Lincoln, RI 02865, attention Director of Operations, email us at [email protected], or call us at (401) 434-8090.