New | Singapore ‘mantrapping’ away Hong Kong financial competitiveness
High security standards for data centres in Singapore are pulling bank headquarters away from Hong Kong
Good luck breaking into a Singaporean data centre.
The city-state’s financial regulator has set up a test for centres looking to host sensitive data from banks, called a threat vulnerability and risk assessment (TVRA).
In order to pass, the centres must weather severe natural disasters and even attacks from rocket-propelled grenades.
Intruders to one of these heavily guarded units should beware of the “mantraps”. This type of security door will lock down upon detecting a breach, trapping within bewildered, defenceless data burglers.
The test also has an equally stringent cyber security assessment in place to ensure the centres can keep most hackers out.
The grenade defence and the mantraps might seem like overkill but they are pulling banks toward Singapore instead of Hong Kong as concerns over data security rise.
“It could just be a marketing element from the regulator. But if it is, it’s a good one,” Krupal Raval, senior vice president for finance at Digital Realty, told the South China Morning Post in an interview. “From a banking perspective, we see more activity in Singapore. That’s because [regulators] are more proactive in reaching out.”
