Managed IT & Cybersecurity for Financial Services Firms

Financial services runs on connectivity that cannot drop. Trading platforms, client management systems and FCA reporting infrastructure all depend on a circuit that performs to a measurable standard. A consumer-grade or contended business leased line alternative leaves resilience to chance — and the FCA expects you to prove it, not assume it.

Why do financial services firms need a dedicated leased line?

Financial services firms need a leased line because their important business services — trading, client portals, payments and reporting — cannot tolerate the variable performance of contended broadband. A dedicated circuit delivers symmetric, uncontended bandwidth with a defined SLA, giving you an auditable resilience standard the FCA can review.

The numbers behind the risk are stark. According to the DSIT Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025, 43% of UK businesses suffered a cyber breach or attack in the last 12 months, 85% of those breaches involved phishing, and the average cost of a disruptive breach was £3,550 (gov.uk). For a regulated firm, the regulatory and reputational cost dwarfs that average. A resilient, monitored connection is the foundation that the rest of your controls sit on — which is why we pair connectivity with leased line security from day one.

How does a leased line support FCA operational resilience compliance?

A leased line supports FCA operational resilience compliance by giving you a contractual, measurable resilience standard for a named important business service. SYSC 15A (Operational Resilience) requires firms to map important business services and the technology that supports them — and to test recovery. An SLA-backed circuit with monitoring produces the evidence that mapping demands.

The FCA requires firms to identify, protect against, and recover from disruptions to important business services. Connectivity is almost always a critical dependency in that map. AMVIA's monitoring provides the operational data — uptime, latency, fault response — needed to demonstrate connectivity resilience to FCA supervision and to evidence your technology risk management.

What connectivity do trading and regulatory reporting systems require?

Trading and reporting systems require low latency and guaranteed delivery. High-latency connections introduce delays between price data and execution, causing slippage and adverse fills. Regulatory submissions — MiFID II transaction reports, CASS reconciliations, capital returns — depend on a connection whose integrity and reliability can be relied on under deadline.

• Low-latency trading access — uncontended fibre keeps the gap between price data and execution tight for equity, FX and derivatives platforms.
• Reliable regulatory reporting — FCA-connected systems need a circuit that does not degrade when reports are due.
• Data security in transit — a private, dedicated path reduces the exposure of sensitive financial data versus shared infrastructure.
• Predictable VoIP and cloud headroom — symmetric upload supports recorded calls, video and cloud applications without contention.

A dedicated internet access circuit gives you that uncontended path; for firms running several sites, multi-site connectivity keeps every branch on the same standard.

What redundancy do FCA-regulated firms need?

A single internet connection is a single point of failure. FCA-regulated firms with important business services that depend on connectivity should run a secondary path — a second leased line or a 4G/5G backup — with automatic failover. This keeps trading platforms, client systems and reporting infrastructure reachable when the primary circuit fails.

Pair your primary circuit with backup connectivity for failover, or use SD-WAN to manage traffic and resilience intelligently across multiple offices.

What does AMVIA's financial services connectivity include?

AMVIA's FS connectivity is built around regulatory compliance, operational resilience and the data sensitivity of financial information. You get a dedicated circuit, proactive monitoring, a single point of accountability and security designed in — not a telecoms line bolted onto an unmanaged network.

• Standard dedicated leased line — point-to-point symmetric fibre at 100Mbps, 200Mbps, 500Mbps or 1Gbps, with a defined SLA and priority fault response. Sizing depends on user count, cloud usage, trading data volumes and VoIP load.
• Dual-path resilience — primary leased line plus a second leased line or 4G/5G backup with automatic failover for firms with DR obligations under SYSC 15A.
• SD-WAN for multiple offices — intelligent traffic management and automated failover across a main office and satellite branches.
• Proactive monitoring — uptime, latency and fault data captured to evidence resilience to FCA supervision.
• Security-first delivery — Microsoft Defender and Barracuda email and network protection, managed by one accountable provider.

How much does a leased line for financial services cost?

AMVIA leased lines start from £69/month, with the final price driven by bandwidth, the distance from your premises to the nearest fibre, contract term and whether civils work is required. A dual-path or SD-WAN resilience design adds the cost of the second circuit and managed failover — modest against the regulatory cost of an outage.

Installation typically takes 30–90 days, depending on distance to fibre infrastructure and any civils work. AMVIA manages the full process end to end; see our leased line installation timescales for what drives the timeline.

FCA cybersecurity controls checklist for financial services

The FCA expects firms to demonstrate sound technology and cyber risk management under SYSC 13, PS21/3 and its cyber security guidance for small firms. These are the core technical controls a leased line and a security-first network help you evidence.

• Business continuity plan tested annually — including IT disaster recovery, with failover scenarios actually tested, not just documented.
• Critical system RTOs defined and met — recovery time objectives for trading and client-facing systems documented and validated.
• Third-party IT supplier risk assessed — all IT and cloud vendors in scope for third-party risk reviews, with due diligence and contractual controls.
• Employee cyber awareness training current — at least annual training and phishing simulations for all staff with access to client data.
• Penetration test completed within 12 months — by a qualified testing provider, covering internal and external attack surfaces.

The NCSC's small-business and cyber-threat guidance is a practical reference for sizing these controls (ncsc.gov.uk).