Practical guide to security officers and guard-tour management under the ABS Physical Security Guidelines 2.0 (Revised 2025), covering licensing

The ABS Physical Security Guidelines for Financial Institutions 2.0 (Revised 2025) treats security personnel as one layer within a broader physical security programme.

Security officers are not presented as a substitute for CCTV, access control, alarms or procedures. Likewise, technology is not presented as a complete substitute for people.

ABS’s layered approach considers infrastructure, security systems, people and procedures together. It also gives security personnel an important role in both deterrence and proactive detection, including guard patrols and the ability to shift rapidly from routine operations to emergency response.

The practical question is therefore not simply:

“How many guards does a financial institution need?”

It is:

“What security functions need to be performed, where must they be performed, and what combination of people, technology and procedures is appropriate to the risk?”

Does ABS require every financial institution to have security guards?

The guideline does not state that every corporate FI office must deploy a fixed number of security officers.

Instead, security guarding is one of several possible risk-treatment measures.

ABS gives deployment of guards at branches as an example of a physical security risk-reduction control, alongside access control and visitor-management procedures.

The guideline also recognises that different premises need different physical security measures, including:

• corporate offices;
• retail branches; and
• critical facilities such as data centres.

Therefore, guarding requirements should follow the risk assessment and operating model.

What role do security officers play under the ABS framework?

ABS promotes a proactive approach.

It says security officers should develop a mindset of continuously looking for potential attackers and should respond promptly to security incidents.

Regular training should also enable them to detect:

• bad actors; and
• pre-attack reconnaissance.

This means the officer’s role goes beyond:

sitting at a reception desk or watching a monitor.

Security personnel form part of the organisation’s detection and response capability.

Are security officers a deterrent?

Yes.

In its layered-security discussion, ABS identifies security personnel as part of the deterrence layer.

Examples given include:

• auxiliary police officers at retail banking branches; and
• security guards in commercial buildings.

Visible guarding can therefore contribute to discouraging hostile activity before an incident occurs.

Are security officers also part of detection?

Yes.

ABS’s proactive security approach includes using security guards and patrols to detect approaching threats.

It gives security guard patrols as an example of proactive external detection, alongside video surveillance with analytics.

Elsewhere, ABS states that trained security officers and employees are useful for identifying:

• suspicious persons;
• suspicious activities; and
• suspicious items.

This makes guarding part of the detection process rather than merely a static manpower function.

Must security officers be licensed?

According to the ABS guideline, yes.

It states that all security officers must be licensed or exempted by the Police Licensing and Regulatory Department, and that they should be screened before employment.

The Building Management Engagement Guide separately asks whether building security personnel are supplied by a PLRD-licensed security agency.

For a publishable compliance statement, I would preserve this as:

“The ABS guideline states that security officers must be licensed or exempted by PLRD.”

Any article explaining the exact current licensing process should separately verify the latest authority requirements rather than extrapolating them from ABS alone.

Does ABS require security officers to be screened before employment?

Yes.

ABS states that security officers should be screened before they are selected for employment.

The guideline does not provide a detailed employee-screening methodology in this section.

Therefore, it should not be interpreted as prescribing a particular background-check process beyond what is actually stated.

What qualifications should security officers have?

ABS states that prior to employment, security officers must be appropriately certified through Security Workforce Skills Qualifications programmes.

The guideline does not provide a detailed list of individual WSQ modules in this section.

The exact current certification requirements should therefore be checked separately where needed.

Is initial certification enough?

No.

ABS says security officers should be continuously trained after employment.

The training topics identified include:

• emergency response;
• evacuation procedures;
• basic initial fact-finding;
• basic firefighting; and
• basic first aid.

ABS therefore treats officer competency as something that must be maintained rather than something established only at recruitment.

Should security officers receive site-specific training?

The guideline strongly supports this in principle.

ABS says officers should regularly participate in drills and exercises so they become familiar with the security procedures and responses applicable to the building.

This is important because general guarding qualifications do not automatically teach an officer:

• the FI’s access-control procedure;
• alarm response;
• building evacuation routes;
• landlord escalation arrangements;
• critical areas;
• restricted doors;
• duress-alarm procedures; or
• site-specific incident protocols.

Consultant’s perspective

A financial institution should therefore distinguish between:

industry qualification

and

site competency.

Both matter.

Should security officers participate in drills?

Yes.

ABS expressly states that security personnel are required to participate regularly in drills and exercises to familiarise themselves with relevant building security procedures and responses.

The Building Management Engagement Guide also asks whether there is a programme that regularly tests officers’ competency in handling security incidents through exercises or drills.

This means an FI should be interested not only in whether officers have attended training, but whether they can demonstrate their ability to perform during an incident.

What should security officers be tested on?

ABS does not provide one universal competency-test template.

However, its building checklist asks whether training equips officers to carry out their SOP duties and respond to applicable threats. It then asks whether competency is regularly tested through exercises or drills.

Consultant’s perspective

Depending on the site, exercises might assess:

• suspicious-person response;
• unauthorised entry;
• alarm response;
• visitor escalation;
• suspicious article;
• evacuation;
• lockdown;
• communications;
• duress response;
• coordination with building management; or
• handover to emergency responders.

Those examples are practical applications rather than an ABS-prescribed drill list.

What is Guard Tour Management?

ABS defines guard-tour management as a systematic approach to patrolling premises and providing adequate security coverage across strategic and vulnerable areas.

Examples identified by ABS include:

• entry points;
• critical equipment rooms;
• staircases; and
• service areas.

The intention is therefore more structured than:

“The guard walks around occasionally.”

Guard tours should have an operational purpose.

What should a guard-tour procedure contain?

ABS says guard-tour arrangements should include:

• timings;
• routes; and
• checkpoints.

A practical guard-tour SOP might additionally define:

That is a consultant’s example rather than an ABS-required format.

Which locations should guards patrol?

ABS specifically refers to strategic and vulnerable locations such as:

• entry points;
• critical equipment rooms;
• staircases; and
• service areas.

The final patrol route should still follow the site’s risk assessment.

For one FI, a technology room may be critical.

For another, the highest-risk location may be:

• cash operations;
• a loading bay;
• a vault;
• a data hall; or
• a public-facing branch area.

Should patrol routes always be the same?

No.

ABS specifically states that guard-tour frequency and routes should be varied to avoid predictability.

This is an important operational detail.

A patrol that occurs at exactly:

10:00, 11:00 and 12:00 using exactly the same route

can become predictable.

Predictable guarding may make it easier for a hostile person to identify periods when an area is not being observed.

Does varying the patrol route mean patrols should be random?

Not necessarily.

ABS says frequency and routes should be varied, but does not say patrols should become uncontrolled or undocumented.

A better interpretation is:

structured but not completely predictable.

Consultant’s perspective

The FI could still require specific high-risk areas to be inspected within defined time windows while allowing variation in:

• route sequence;
• exact time;
• starting point; or
• patrol direction.

Should guard tours be recorded?

ABS says guard-tour procedures should include schedules, routes and checkpoints, but the cited section does not expressly mandate one specific recording technology.

A guard-tour system may therefore be:

• electronic;
• app-based;
• checkpoint-based; or
• another documented method.

What matters is that the patrol programme can demonstrate that required areas are being covered.

Does ABS require an electronic guard-tour system?

No universal requirement is stated.

The guideline refers to guard management systems, particularly where the system is managed by building management, but it does not state that every FI must purchase an electronic guard-tour platform.

An electronic system may improve accountability and reporting, but that is different from saying ABS mandates it.

What if the landlord provides the guards?

ABS specifically recognises this situation.

Where guard management is provided and maintained by building management, the FI should assess it as part of the infrastructure supporting its security programme.

This follows the same pattern as ABS applies to landlord-managed:

• CCTV;
• access control;
• visitor management; and
• intrusion detection.

The FI should understand what the building guards actually do rather than assume their presence covers all tenant risks.

What should an FI ask about building security officers?

The ABS Building Management Engagement Guide asks whether:

• security personnel are from a PLRD-licensed security agency;
• their training programme adequately prepares them for their duties and applicable threats;
• their competency is regularly tested through exercises or drills; and
• additional personnel are deployed at ingress and egress points during heightened security conditions.

For a tenant FI, these are particularly useful due-diligence questions.

Can the FI rely only on the landlord’s guards?

Potentially, depending on risk, but ABS does not say that building guards automatically satisfy all FI security needs.

The FI should assess whether the landlord’s security deployment adequately supports:

• the FI’s office entrance;
• visitor management;
• after-hours access;
• alarms;
• restricted areas;
• incident response; and
• heightened-security requirements.

Consultant’s perspective

Building guards may be responsible for:

building security

while the FI remains responsible for:

tenant-specific security.

These responsibilities should be explicitly understood.

Should there be dedicated guards inside the FI’s office?

ABS does not state that every office requires a dedicated officer.

The need should follow the risk assessment.

A dedicated FI security presence may be more appropriate where there are:

• large employee populations;
• high visitor volumes;
• critical operations;
• sensitive assets;
• high-risk customer-facing operations;
• extended operating hours; or
• response requirements that building security cannot adequately support.

This is a risk-based consultant interpretation rather than a universal ABS requirement.

Does ABS require guards at retail bank branches?

Appendix 2 recommends that the basic retail-branch protective measures be deployed with security guarding services.

However, Appendix 2 is described by ABS as a General Guide for Retail Branches, not as a universal baseline requirement.

So the careful wording is:

ABS’s retail-branch guide recommends security guarding as part of the overall protective measures.

It should not be rewritten as:

“Every bank branch is legally required by ABS to have X guards.”

Does ABS specify how many guards a branch needs?

No fixed guard quantity is stated in the sections reviewed.

The number of security personnel should therefore be determined from factors such as:

• site risk;
• branch layout;
• operating hours;
• number of access points;
• required patrols;
• customer activity;
• alarm-response requirements; and
• heightened-security arrangements.

ABS’s wider approach remains risk-based.

Does ABS require an Auxiliary Police Officer at every branch?

ABS gives the deployment of an auxiliary police officer in retail banking branches as an example of a deterrence measure within its discussion of GEBSS security layers.

That example should not automatically be interpreted as a blanket statement that every branch must deploy an APO.

The guideline does not state that universal requirement in the cited passage.

Should more security officers be deployed during heightened security?

Potentially, yes.

The Building Management Engagement Guide asks whether additional security personnel are deployed at building ingress and egress points during heightened security conditions to perform enhanced procedures such as screening.

This fits the wider ABS approach that security posture should be capable of increasing when the threat level increases.

Possible enhanced roles may include:

• entry screening;
• bag checks;
• vehicle checks;
• restricted access points;
• increased patrols; or
• heightened observation.

The exact arrangement depends on the premises and risk assessment.

Should guards carry out bag screening?

ABS includes screening among possible enhanced-security measures under heightened conditions, and its Building Management Engagement Guide specifically references additional personnel performing enhanced security SOPs such as screening.

This does not mean routine bag screening is required at every FI under normal conditions.

It is an example of a measure that may be introduced when warranted.

Should guard deployments change when the threat level changes?

Yes, conceptually.

ABS expects FIs to plan for different Security Threat Levels and to determine the resources and responses required at each level.

Security officers are one of the resources that may change.

Consultant’s perspective

A simple manpower plan might look like:

Normal

Standard lobby presence, monitoring and scheduled patrols.

Heightened

Additional entry-point coverage, increased patrols and enhanced screening.

Emergency

Incident-specific deployment, lockdown support, evacuation support and coordination with responders.

This is an implementation example, not an ABS-prescribed threat-level matrix.

Can technology reduce the number of guards?

The ABS guideline does not give a formula such as:

“One camera replaces one guard.”

It instead promotes layered and complementary controls.

Technology may support security officers through:

• CCTV;
• access control;
• alarms;
• analytics;
• remote monitoring; and
• guard-tour management.

Security personnel can then perform functions technology cannot fully perform, such as:

• physical intervention;
• investigation;
• screening;
• communication;
• assistance to occupants; and
• local incident response.

Consultant’s perspective

The better question is not:

“How many guards can technology eliminate?”

It is:

“Which security functions can be automated or monitored remotely, and which still require a person on site?”

That allows manpower to be designed around actual security outcomes.

Can remote monitoring replace static guarding?

Not automatically.

ABS recognises off-site monitoring, but it also separately recognises security personnel as part of protection, detection and response.

Remote monitoring may allow an operator to:

• receive alarms;
• review CCTV;
• assess an incident; and
• initiate escalation.

But a remote operator cannot physically:

• inspect a suspicious person;
• control a lobby;
• respond at a door;
• assist with evacuation; or
• secure an area.

Where those functions are required, a local responder remains necessary.

Can a mobile response officer be used instead of a permanent guard?

ABS does not specifically prescribe this operating model.

However, its framework allows security measures to be designed according to risk and response requirements.

Consultant’s perspective

For lower-risk premises, one possible model might be:

remote monitoring + building security + mobile response

instead of a dedicated static FI guard.

Whether that is appropriate depends on:

• response time;
• landlord capabilities;
• site criticality;
• operating hours;
• threat level; and
• residual risk.

That is an operational design option, not an ABS recommendation.

Should guards monitor CCTV?

They may, depending on their assigned duties.

ABS’s Building Management Engagement Guide asks whether CCTV is monitored by security personnel, while its control-room section expects operators to understand alarms, CCTV information and escalation.

If the same officer performs both patrol and monitoring duties, the FI should consider whether those responsibilities can realistically be performed simultaneously.

Consultant’s perspective

A common operational problem is assigning one officer to:

• reception;
• CCTV;
• visitor registration;
• alarm response; and
• patrol

at the same time.

That may look efficient on a roster but can create gaps whenever the officer leaves the desk.

The resource model should reflect actual duty conflicts.

Should guards be trained to use access control and alarm systems?

ABS does not list every system competency by name in the security-officer training section, but officers should be trained in the procedures required for their assigned role.

Where their duties include:

• acknowledging alarms;
• verifying door events;
• reviewing CCTV;
• controlling access; or
• escalating incidents,

the FI should ensure they are competent to perform those tasks.

This follows directly from ABS’s emphasis on training personnel for the duties specified in the SOPs.

Should guard duties be documented in SOPs?

Yes.

The Building Management Engagement Guide asks whether training equips officers with the skills to perform duties as per the SOPs.

This implies that security-officer duties should be clearly defined operationally.

A post order or guarding SOP might cover:

• post location;
• operating hours;
• access responsibilities;
• visitor handling;
• patrol requirements;
• monitoring responsibilities;
• incident escalation;
• emergency procedures;
• prohibited activities; and
• shift handover.

That is a consultant’s recommended structure rather than a template prescribed by ABS.

Should security officers document incidents?

The guideline does not set out a dedicated incident-report form in the security-officer section.

However, ABS expects officers to receive training in basic initial fact-finding procedures.

This supports the need for officers to capture reliable initial information following an incident.

Consultant’s perspective

A basic report could capture:

• time;
• location;
• persons involved;
• what was observed;
• actions taken;
• notifications;
• available CCTV or access events; and
• handover to responders.

Should guard shifts have formal handover procedures?

ABS does not explicitly prescribe shift-handover content in the cited sections.

However, a handover process is a sensible operational control where guarding is continuous.

A useful handover may include:

• outstanding incidents;
• disabled systems;
• unusual visitors or contractors;
• doors under maintenance;
• temporary access arrangements;
• expected high-risk activity;
• threat-level changes; and
• instructions from security management.

This is consultant guidance rather than a direct ABS requirement.

What is the difference between a security officer and the Security Control Room?

The roles may overlap but they serve different functions.

The Security Control Room may:

• receive alarms;
• monitor CCTV;
• assess information; and
• coordinate escalation.

The security officer in the field may:

• investigate;
• verify physically;
• manage access;
• patrol;
• screen people;
• secure an area; and
• assist with response.

ABS expects communication between control-room personnel and field officers as part of effective building security.

The two functions therefore work together.

What should happen when a guard identifies suspicious activity?

ABS says employees and security personnel should understand escalation procedures, including who to notify and escalate to when security concerns arise.

A practical process may be:

Observe → Assess → Report → Monitor → Escalate → Respond

The exact response depends on the incident.

Officers should not be left to improvise major incident decisions without an established SOP.

Common mistakes when interpreting the ABS guarding guidance

“ABS requires a guard at every financial institution office.”
The guideline does not state this universal requirement.

“ABS specifies a fixed guard-to-employee ratio.”
No such ratio appears in the reviewed sections.

“Technology can automatically replace guards.”
ABS promotes complementary security layers rather than a one-for-one substitution.

“A licensed officer does not need site training.”
ABS expressly expects continuous training, drills and familiarity with building-specific procedures.

“Patrols should happen at exactly the same time every day.”
ABS recommends varying routes and frequencies to reduce predictability.

“If the landlord has guards, the FI does not need to assess guarding.”
ABS says landlord-managed guarding arrangements should form part of the FI’s overall security assessment.

A practical security-manpower design process

A financial institution can approach guarding requirements in the following order.

1. Identify required security functions

Determine whether the site needs:

• screening;
• reception security;
• patrol;
• monitoring;
• alarm response;
• incident response;
• access control; or
• emergency support.

2. Determine what technology can support

Understand what functions CCTV, access control, alarms, analytics or remote monitoring can perform.

3. Determine what still requires a person

Identify tasks requiring physical presence.

4. Assess landlord resources

Determine what building guards already provide.

5. Identify gaps

Establish which functions remain the FI’s responsibility.

6. Determine deployment

Decide whether the requirement calls for:

• dedicated officers;
• shared building security;
• patrol officers;
• mobile response;
• remote monitoring; or
• a combination.

7. Define SOPs

Specify the officer’s actual duties.

8. Train and test

Ensure officers understand both routine and emergency procedures.

9. Review the model

Reassess guarding needs when threats, operations or technology change.

This reflects the ABS risk-based philosophy more closely than beginning with a fixed number of manpower posts.

Practical ABS security-officer and guard-tour checklist

A financial institution should be able to answer questions such as:

• What functions are security officers expected to perform?
• Does the site genuinely require dedicated guarding?
• Are officers appropriately licensed or exempted?
• If an external agency is used, is it appropriately licensed?
• Have officers been screened before employment?
• Have officers obtained the relevant security qualifications?
• Are they continuously trained?
• Do they understand the FI’s site-specific SOPs?
• Are they trained in emergency response and evacuation?
• Do they understand initial incident fact-finding?
• Are they trained in relevant first aid and basic firefighting requirements?
• Do they participate in drills?
• Is their competency tested?
• Are additional personnel available during heightened security?
• Are guard patrols required?
• Which areas must patrols cover?
• Are timings, routes and checkpoints defined?
• Are patrol routes and frequencies varied?
• Is patrol completion documented?
• Does landlord security cover any of these functions?
• Has the FI assessed the building’s guarding programme?
• Can guards communicate effectively with the control room?
• Are alarm and incident escalation procedures clear?
• Do guarding responsibilities complement CCTV, access control and remote monitoring?
• Are duties reviewed when the FI’s risk or operating model changes?

Conclusion

The ABS Physical Security Guidelines treats security personnel as an active component of a layered security programme.

Security officers are expected to contribute to:

deterrence, detection and response, rather than simply provide visible manpower.

ABS states that officers should be appropriately licensed or exempted, screened, qualified, continuously trained and regularly involved in drills and exercises.

For guard-tour management, ABS recommends structured patrols covering strategic and vulnerable areas with defined:

timings, routes and checkpoints, while varying frequencies and routes to reduce predictability.

The most important principle is:

The objective is not to maximise the number of guards. It is to make sure every required security function has an effective means of detection, escalation and response.

For a modern financial institution, this may involve a combination of security officers, building management, CCTV, access control, alarms and remote monitoring, with manpower concentrated where a physical human presence adds genuine security value.