We will consider the benefits and risks of cloud use, to enable firms to deploy the cloud in a safe and resilient manner.
Speed and agility is crucial to compete in today’s often global and instant marketplace. Cloud service providers offer ready-made solutions that can accelerate time to market. With the benefit of their scale, they also offer leading-edge analytics, enabling businesses to learn and adjust their business models almost in real time. And they can offer greater resilience. And as customer expectations rise, businesses are increasingly choosing to harness artificial intelligence and the cloud to improve the user experience continuously.
Reflecting the benefits of scale, the market for the provision of cloud services is currently dominated by four or five firms in advanced economies. The speeds of remote computing have risen, making remote servers cost-effective and resulting in public (off-site) cloud replacing private (on-site) servers across a range of industries.
To facilitate greater resilience and adoption of the cloud and other new technologies, we will:
- Publish a supervisory statement in 2019, describing the PRA’s modernised policy framework on outsourcing arrangements, including a focus on cloud technology and setting out conditions that can help give firms assurance on its use.
- Convene a Post-Trade Technology Market Practitioner Panel to explore how market participants can leverage technological improvements to deliver a more efficient and resilient post-trade ecosystem.
- Establish a public-private working group with the FCA and firms to further the dialogue on AI innovation; and explore whether principles and guidance could support safe adoption of these technologies.
Our response