Given their scale and impact, a top official at an international gathering for central banks said on Wednesday that there has to be a rethinking of how to actively supervise activities of Big Tech companies in financial services.

Data-rich financial services including banking, payments, asset management, and insurance have long been a focus of large tech businesses like Alibaba and Amazon. Some of these companies also offer cloud computing to power important bank services.

According to Agustin Carstens, general manager of the Bank for International Settlements, their size and reach in social media and e-commerce allow them to quickly gain market share in financial operations.

Because of this, businesses run the risk of becoming “too large to fail,” problem authorities believed to have been resolved with banks following bailouts during the financial crisis more than ten years ago.

Carstens asserted that “without a doubt, a regulatory rethink is warranted, and we need a new road to take,” adding that a new “holistic” framework was required, which included ensuring that Big Tech financial services be ring-fenced from other businesses.

Big Tech companies may learn significant information about potential clients for financial services, such as their wealth and spending patterns, from their enormous data sets. Businesses from Grab in Southeast Asia to Jumia in Africa are attempting to capitalize on this by offering services like credit and payment processing.

According to Carstens, large IT companies with extensive financial activity may also be subject to group-wide governance, corporate behavior, and operational resilience standards.

Implementing “holistic” financial regulations for Big Tech would be difficult because the industry is already governed by competition and data privacy regulators on a national and international level, without any clear “lead” regulator, he continued.

In order to provide financial authorities control over how banks and insurers employ outside cloud computing companies like Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft to host services, operational resilience requirements are already starting to emerge in the European Union, Britain, and other countries.

Microsoft’s $2 billion agreement with the London Stock Exchange Group in December was the most recent illustration of the blending of the lines separating Big Tech and banking.

According to Carstens, the possible advantages of big IT companies entering the finance sector include better client outcomes, more financial market efficiency, and increased financial inclusion. Moving from theory to practice and taking practical regulatory action alternatives are long overdue.