The International Regulatory Strategy Group (IRSG), in collaboration with DAC Beachcroft LLP, launched ‘How the trend towards data localisation is impacting the financial services sector’.

The financial services sector is currently witnessing and responding to increasingly protectionist behaviours across the world in the form of data localisation. Due to various concerns, governments have sought to protect the data of their citizens by implementing restrictions on its transfer. This is leading to changes in the approach to data protection and other related regulation, with businesses no longer able to share data across borders on the same basis as they have done in the past.

In response, this report provides an overview of the types of restrictions applied by jurisdictions throughout the world to the extra-territorial transfer of data. Through case studies, the IRSG and DAC Beachcroft further evidence the practical implications and consequences of such restrictions on the financial services sector and highlight the key concerns arising out of these restrictions. The report includes recommendations on how alternative measures could potentially better address the concerns of both national governments and regulators that have resulted in data localisation.