The National Diversity Assurance Initiative (NDAI) resulted from concerns that a widespread disruption of the telecommunications infrastructure that was not quickly recovered would bring the nation’s wholesale financial system to a halt. The susceptibility of the telecommunications infrastructure to disruption was underscored by the September 11 attacks. The Federal Reserve, in conjunction with other federal and private sector entities, has worked to identify business continuity objectives and sound practices aimed at strengthening the resilience of the U.S. financial system. In 2004, the Federal Reserve formed a partnership with the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) to study the problem of assuring the diversity of existing financial services National Security/Emergency Preparedness communications circuits in a multi-carrier environment. The report that resulted from the year-long National Diversity Assurance Initiative drew several conclusions regarding telecommunications continuity and made a series of recommendations for follow-up efforts.