What OCIR means
Operational continuity in resolution, commonly abbreviated OCIR, is the requirement that the operational underpinnings of a bank's critical functions survive a resolution event. A resolution can recapitalise a failing firm through bail-in and keep its critical functions legally open, yet still fail in practice if the staff, IT systems, intra-group services, premises, contracts or access to financial market infrastructures needed to run those functions are disrupted at the point of failure. OCIR addresses that operational dimension.
In practice, OCIR work covers the mapping of services (whether provided in-house, through a separate service company, or by third parties) to the critical functions they support; ensuring service contracts are resolution-resilient and cannot be terminated simply because the firm entered resolution; maintaining continued access to payment, clearing, settlement and custody infrastructures; and holding sufficient liquidity and staffing to fund and operate services through the crisis.
How it fits the resolution framework
OCIR is one of the standard dimensions of a resolvability assessment. Weaknesses in operational continuity, such as unmapped dependencies, service contracts that would lapse on entry into resolution, or reliance on infrastructure access that could be withdrawn, are treated as substantive impediments to resolvability that a bank must remove. The design of service arrangements also interacts with the resolution strategy: a single-point-of-entry group and a multiple-point-of-entry group may need different operational structures to keep each resolution entity self-sufficient.
Legal basis
Operational continuity in resolution is not codified in a single dedicated article of the BRRD; it is developed principally through resolution-authority and standard-setter expectations rather than a stand-alone legislative provision. The legal anchor is the general power to require the removal of impediments to resolvability under BRRD Articles 17 and 18, which authorities use to compel operational-continuity improvements. The Single Resolution Board sets out detailed OCIR expectations in its "Expectations for Banks", drawing on European Banking Authority guidance and Financial Stability Board guidance on continuity of access to financial market infrastructures and on arrangements to support operational continuity. Because the requirement rests largely on this supervisory and guidance framework, banking-union expectations are more granular than the BRRD text alone.
Practical relevance for banks and investors
For banks, OCIR translates into concrete organisational choices: whether to house shared services in a ring-fenced service company, how to price and document intra-group service agreements, how to preserve key staff and knowledge, and how to guarantee continued access to critical infrastructure. These arrangements are tested by the resolution authority and feature in resolvability reporting.
For investors, OCIR is less visible than capital or MREL but is a real determinant of whether a resolution would succeed. A firm with poorly mapped dependencies or fragile service contracts is harder to resolve credibly, which weakens the case that its critical functions could be maintained and that bail-in could be executed in an orderly way. Analysts assessing resolvability should therefore treat operational continuity, alongside loss-absorbing capacity, as part of the overall resolvability picture.