Bank of England Seizes Direct Oversight Powers Over Amazon, Google and Cloud Giants

Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority have been granted direct oversight of Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Oracle and Microsoft – the four major cloud and technology providers to UK banks.\n\n## A New Oversight Framework for the UK’s Financial Resilience\n\nThe BoE and FCA will now monitor these ‘critical third parties’ to ensure they maintain robust cyber‑defences, conduct rigorous stress testing and promptly report major incidents such as cyber‑attacks, power outages or natural‑disaster impacts. The goal is to shield the UK financial system from systemic disruptions that could ripple through millions of consumers and businesses.\n\n### Defining Critical Third Parties and Their Obligations\n\n- Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Oracle and Microsoft have been designated by the UK government as critical third parties.\n- These firms must demonstrate resilience under extreme stress scenarios.\n- Any significant cyber‑incident, electricity failure or natural‑disaster effect must be reported immediately to the BoE and FCA.\n\n### Impact on Banks and Recent Incidents\n\n- In October last year, Lloyds Banking Group was among more than 2,000 firms disrupted by a glitch in Amazon’s Northern Virginia cloud operations.\n- Between 2023 and 2025, customers of Britain’s main banks and building societies experienced the equivalent of over a month’s worth of IT outages, according to the Treasury Committee.\n\n### The Future Outlook for AI‑Focused Firms\n\nTreasury Committee chair Meg Hillier warned that as AI adoption expands in financial services, regulators may need to bring specific AI companies under the Critical Third Parties Regime. She stressed that proactive oversight would help the UK avoid vulnerability should a major AI service provider fail.\n\n> Dr. Yaman Ege: While granting the BoE direct oversight of major cloud providers addresses an urgent systemic risk, true resilience will require diversifying supplier bases and adopting multi‑cloud architectures. Furthermore, AI‑specific risks — such as data integrity breaches, model drift and opaque decision‑making — must be captured through tailored stress‑testing protocols; otherwise, the very efficiency gains sought from AI could introduce new points of failure in the financial chain.