Alma Dizdaric
Today Atlassian announced that all European financial services customers making a qualified cloud purchase can be provided with an EU Financial Services Addendum (EU FSA). The EU FSA is a contract addendum to the Atlassian Subscription Agreement (ASA) that provides customers with additional terms to ensure all regulatory guidelines are met, which is required to migrate customers to the cloud.
As Atlassian is officially able to comply with the outsourcing regulations of the European Banking Authority (EBA) and the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) through a signed EU FSA, this measure has now been realized to the benefit of affected financial services customers.
Accordingly, Atlassian is authorized to unlock EU financial services customers who have specified EBA and/or BaFin compliance as a cloud blocker by offering the EU FSA to their Atlassian Subscription Agreement.
Who is essentially eligible for EU FSA and what about financial services clients located outside of Europe?
In principle, banks and insurance companies operating in the European Economic Area or the UK, as well as local/regional banks and large multinational banks present in the EEA (e.g. Morgan Stanley, Natwest and Deutsche Bank) are eligible for the EU FSA.
In addition, selected fintech companies may qualify for approval based on their service portfolio.
Until the change is effective for U.S. and Australian financial services companies, there are still some steps to be taken within the implementation of financial services compliance. This is expected to take place in the 2nd half of fiscal year 2022.
What are the benefits and additional permissions for the client by concluding the EU FSA with Atlassian?
By concluding the EU-FSA, additional rights are granted to both Atlassian and the client, which in combination with the ASA provide more certainty within both parties in complying with the EBA guidelines and BaFin guidelines.
The following rights become effective upon signing the EU FSA:
- Broad audit rights for the customer and its auditors and regulators, at the Atlassian-level and downstream for our most important service provider, AWS;
- Enhanced record-keeping and notification obligations for Atlassian;
- Requirement for Atlassian to cooperate with the customer’s regulators;
- Continuity of service after bankruptcy or termination.
To learn more about the EBA and BaFin regulations and Guidelines, visit the linked pages.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact our experts.
