The Bank of England is expecting higher standards from firms on their cyber resilience, as it steps up action against a crime that is becoming much more prevalent than other forms of theft.

Elisabeth Stheeman, a member of the BoE’s financial policy committee, said the central bank was concerned that a “severe or persistent” cyber attack that let to a data breach or outage could undermine trust in the financial system.

In a bid to increase resilience, the FPC is looking to set “impact