In a sign of the times, “digital sovereignty” has climbed the agenda of financial markets operational pros. A panel at Optic 2025 discussed it. Could a foreign president switch off your email?
The reliance of EU-based organisations on cloud-based data services by US companies are one example. While the full concept of digital sovereignty could seem fluffy, most observers could agree that it is a thing you do not enjoy in case the company that runs your cloud computing service can effectively pull the plug on your operations. The awareness has been heightened by situations such as where a prosecutor at the International Court of Justice, investigating Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had his Microsoft email service blocked after an order by US president Donald Trump.
On stage were …
Alexandre Ferreira Gomes, Research Fellow, Instituut Clingendael,
Amit Dhawan, Chief Information Officer, Financial Markets IT, ING,
Matthew Field, Executive Director, Head of Tech and Cyber Policy, EMEA, JP Morgan Chase, and
Ray Pinto, Senior Director Vertical Strategy, Digital Europe, with
moderator Marcus Corry, Director, Technology & Operations, AFME
The yearly Optic conference, in Amsterdam on 7–8 October 2025, is hosted by the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME). Optic stands for the “Operations, post trade, technology and innovation conference”. PostTrade 360° is there, with our coverage collected here.
