Concerns about Wall Street's ability to withstand a terrorist attack, natural disaster or flu pandemic have prompted Hank Paulson, the new US treasury secretary, to launch a review of disaster planning for the financial markets.
In one of his first acts in the post, the former Goldman Sachs chief executive has asked the US president's working group on financial markets to assess the improvements made since September 11th, 2001.
His move comes amid continued Wall Street concerns - five years after the World Trade Center attacks - about the resilience of power and telecommunications services.
September 11th exposed weaknesses in the industry's disaster planning and closed the equity market for four days.
Experts say financial services companies in New York and London have improved the resilience of their operations. But some senior Wall Street figures are concerned that the utilities, on which the financial markets are highly dependent, have made less progress.
There is also greater focus on the impact of a flu pandemic on the financial system.
Scott Parsons, US deputy assistant treasury secretary, said the utilities had made "tremendous improvements," but added: "We remain concerned about how to provide better resilience in telecommunications, which is the financial sector's single biggest dependency."
Wall Street firms blamed many of their problems in 2001 on the damage to one of Verizon Communications' five switching centres in lower Manhattan.
Some Wall Street disaster planners believe more pressure needs to be put on the utilities by their regulators. They are encouraged by the early interest taken by Mr Paulson, who was closely involved in the issue at Goldman Sachs.
In recent months, many financial services companies and regulators have been focusing on their ability to continue operations in the event of a flu pandemic, when many staff would want to work from home.
Gregory Ferris, head of business continuity planning at Morgan Stanley, told a US congressional committee in June it was unclear whether New York networks could cope with a spike in internet demand in areas with a high concentration of securities industry workers.
One possibility Wall Street executives want to discuss with telecoms companies and regulators is whether non-essential internet traffic could be blocked in such a crisis.
Mr Parsons said the US authorities were taking a close look at whether a "work at home" strategy would be effective in a pandemic given the potential impact on the internet.
Mr Parsons, who is responsible for critical infrastructure protection, said more recent events, such as the New York power blackout in 2003, showed that lessons had been learned from the Trade Center attacks.
