The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has called for stronger regulatory scrutiny of the major technology providers underpinning the UK’s financial sector, following a series of incidents that exposed widespread operational vulnerabilities across the industry.
In comments made to The Guardian, FCA deputy chief executive Sarah Pritchard said the regulator is increasingly concerned about the level of reliance banks and financial institutions have on a small group of cloud and web-services giants, and signalled that the watchdog is prepared to step in should the government introduce tighter rules, claims UKTech.
Pritchard, who stepped into the deputy chief role earlier this year, said the FCA is “ready” to supervise the activities of technology partners such as Amazon and Google, whose infrastructure has become deeply embedded in the daily operations of UK financial services. She highlighted the growing urgency around operational resilience and cyber readiness, pointing to repeated reminders of how central these systems have become to the stability of the financial ecosystem.
Her remarks come in the wake of a major Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage last month, which caused widespread disruption for thousands of businesses and left the banking and finance sector grappling with service delays. Companies including Wise, Halifax, Lloyds and the London Stock Exchange experienced significant impacts, prompting renewed debate over the systemic risks associated with concentrating critical infrastructure in the hands of a few global technology firms.
The aftermath of the outage has intensified scrutiny over whether the UK’s regulatory framework sufficiently reflects the scale of dependence on these providers. Many industry observers argue that essential financial operations are disproportionately exposed to service failures at just a handful of digital service companies.
Responding to questions about whether the current oversight regime is too limited, Pritchard indicated her support for a more robust approach. Financial Conduct Authority deputy chief executive Sarah Pritchard said, “We would like to see the system strengthen and we stand ready to supervise jointly with the PRA and the Bank of England when there is a designation that’s made.”
Her comments align with growing calls across the regulatory community for the UK to ensure that its supervisory framework evolves in step with technological change. As financial institutions continue to digitise operations, regulators have emphasised that maintaining resilience across supply chains is becoming as critical as direct oversight of firms themselves.
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