Bank Of Cyprus Fortifies Talent Development With Third Year Of BoC Academy

by THEFUTURE.TEAM

January 9, 2026

Elevating Employee Expertise

The Bank of Cyprus has reaffirmed its commitment to empowering its workforce by announcing the third year of the BoC Academy, an initiative designed to cultivate skills in line with a rapidly evolving banking landscape.

Expanding Academic Horizons

Launched three years ago, the programme was established to strengthen competencies and broaden knowledge across the organisation. Since its inception, the Academy has grown in both scope and academic partnerships, underlining the bank’s proactive approach to staff development.

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Milestones And Strategic Partnerships

The academic year 2024–2025 marked significant milestones, including two graduation ceremonies: the first in June in collaboration with CIM Business School, and a subsequent ceremony in early December with the University of Cyprus. During this period, 26 employees successfully earned professional certificates in seven distinct disciplines, while four staff members secured full scholarships for the MBA postgraduate programme at the University of Cyprus.

Leadership Insight

Demetris Chr. Demetriou, Executive Director of People And Change, emphasized the bank’s collective achievements by stating, “We are proud of our people and what we achieve together.” Demetriou further described the BoC Academy as more than just a programme, calling it a “testament to our dedication and commitment to knowledge and continuous development.”

The Future Forbes Realty Global Properties

Google Cloud Outage Disrupts Banking And Digital Services Across The UK

by THEFUTURE.TEAM

October 20, 2026

A power outage at a Google Cloud data centre near London disrupted services across the UK on Tuesday, affecting banks, businesses and other digital platforms. Google said the incident was caused by a power event at its cloud operations, with full recovery expected by around 1300 GMT.

The disruption began at 0608 GMT and affected Google Cloud services in the europe-west2 region, which is hosted in London. In an initial update, the company reported elevated error rates and intermittent network failures across multiple services as engineers worked to restore operations.

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Banking Services Hit By The Disruption

Revolut was among the most visibly affected companies, with customers reporting problems with ATM withdrawals, bank transfers and card top-ups. A source close to the matter linked the issues to the Google Cloud outage.

Traditional banks also reported disruptions. Lloyds said some customers were experiencing problems with its app and online banking, while HSBC confirmed difficulties accessing its services. HSBC added that it was monitoring the situation and noted that other organisations were affected as well.

Disruption Spreads Beyond Finance

Downdetector, which tracks online service disruptions, recorded hundreds of reports involving other businesses, including property website Rightmove and the Royal Mail postal service. The reports suggested that the outage was affecting multiple parts of the UK’s digital economy.

The incident highlights the risks facing businesses that depend on shared cloud infrastructure. Even a temporary failure at a single provider can disrupt services across several sectors, from banking and payments to logistics and consumer platforms.

Companies Reassure Customers

Revolut said it had been working to resolve the issue since it was identified and apologised to affected customers. The company also confirmed that customers’ money and data remained safe.

As cloud platforms underpin an increasing share of digital commerce, the outage illustrates how disruptions to critical infrastructure can spread far beyond the provider itself, affecting businesses and customers across the economy.

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