In a new paper titled ‘Enabling Compliance: Microsoft’s approach to the FCA’s finalised cloud guidance’, Microsoft has claimed that its cloud service, Azure, is the ideal choice for financial firms, as it complies with the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA’s) new guidelines.
The new guidance, which was released in July, is designed to help firms from the financial sector move their work online. In it, the FCA said that companies should explore all available options before deciding, but noted that there’s no reason why online services like the cloud cannot be implemented.
“Scale as you need, pay as you go”
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform and infrastructure created by Microsoft for building, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed data centres.
Following the classic cloud model of “scale as you need, pay as you go”, Azure supports a wide selection of operating systems, programming languages, frameworks, tools, databases and devices, including both Microsoft-specific and third-party software and systems.
Microsoft said the FCA’s release has helped to empower businesses within the legal and finance communities and was keen to highlight the benefits of the cloud and online services in general, including increased flexibility and innovation.
In an open letter, Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer said: “We understand that it is our responsibility to provide tools and information that will enable you to deploy cloud services with the highest confidence that they are safe and compliant.”
Microsoft’s paper addresses each of the points raised in the FCA’s new guidance and demonstrates that Azure is an ideal choice. For example, the tech giant states that customer data is isolated and belongs to the customer, who can access it at any time.
Also included in the paper is Microsoft’s contractual commitments, which include providing businesses, auditors and regulators access to information about the cloud services they are using.
Guy Dickerson, UK financial services sales manager at Microsoft, said the company understands that customers want to know more about enterprise risks and what their cloud provider can do to help.
“The long-awaited FCA cloud guidance has provided us with an opportunity to further support our customers in their reviews and offers a detailed response mapped against the features of our cloud offerings,” he said.
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