Managed IT Support For Financial Services

AIS Technology's plan covers a service desk that answers 24 hours a day with a one-hour response SLA, proactive monitoring and patching, onboarding and offboarding, Microsoft 365 backup and recovery, 24/7 endpoint detection and response, identity and account protection and a dedicated Security Operations Centre. It costs £35 per device per month, excluding VAT, on a three-month rolling contract, and Microsoft 365 licensing is bought separately. Most regulated firms add the compliance portal, at £100 per organisation per month, for FCA and GDPR support and their audit evidence.

In most cases, yes. The FCA's guidance on cloud and IT outsourcing, FG16/5, says that where a third party delivers services on behalf of a regulated firm, the FCA considers that to be outsourcing. If a failure at the provider would materially impair your compliance or your service to clients, the function is critical or important under SYSC 8.1.4R, and the conditions in SYSC 8.1.8R are the standard the arrangement is judged against. Your firm stays fully responsible for its regulatory obligations whichever provider it uses.

The incident reporting rules in the FCA's policy statement PS26/2 come into force. Every firm with a Part 4A permission, including core and limited scope SM&CR firms, must report an operational incident that meets the FCA's thresholds. The FCA expects the first report as soon as practicable and at the latest within 24 hours of the firm deciding a threshold is met. Most firms will use a single short form. Your IT provider needs to tell you about a serious incident quickly enough for you to make that report.

Not if you are a core or limited scope SM&CR firm, which covers most small advice firms, brokers and other small regulated firms. SYSC 15A applies to enhanced scope SM&CR firms, banks, building societies, designated investment firms, Solvency II firms, payment and e-money institutions and a few others. The outsourcing requirements in SYSC 8, the systems and controls rules in SYSC 4 and the Principles apply to small firms regardless, and so will incident reporting from 18 March 2027.

The FCA does not require it. FG16/5 says that assurance from an international standard is useful when you check a provider, but is unlikely to be sufficient on its own for critical or important functions. A certificate describes how the provider runs itself, not how your own systems are set up. Every AIS managed client is set up to the Cyber Essentials standard, and AIS runs ISO 27001 readiness programmes for firms whose own clients ask for it.

The compliance portal keeps your policies, procedures and evidence stored against the controls they prove, with a risk register, a compliance health score and reporting you can share. Alongside it you have the Cyber Essentials baseline, the 24/7 security monitoring from the Security Operations Centre and Microsoft 365 backup and recovery. Completed client security questionnaires and their supporting evidence are part of the portal too.

Accountancy practices work to fixed dates such as VAT quarters, the 31 January self assessment deadline and client year ends, and they hold financial records that have to stay confidential. Support for a practice puts the practice and accounting software, Excel and secure file sharing with clients first, and response times matter most in the weeks before a deadline. Third-party application support is included in the AIS plan, so the practice software is covered along with Microsoft 365.

Yes. AIS supports firms using Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations with user access, performance and configuration problems, and with how it works alongside Outlook, Excel and the rest of Microsoft 365.

Yes. Most problems are fixed remotely, and the plan covers secure remote access, device monitoring and Microsoft 365 sign-in problems wherever staff work. Engineers can be on site in Essex and London when hardware, network faults or an office move need someone in the room.

Small and medium firms across Essex and London, including independent financial advisers, accountancy practices, other FCA-regulated firms and finance departments inside larger businesses. AIS looks after more than 600 users in total. The plan is priced per device, so the cost moves with the size of the firm.