The Bank of England has trebled the amount it is spending on its Oracle systems integrator amid efforts to migrate business applications to the cloud.

The UK’s central bank has planned the move since 2020, and a recent procurement note revealed it has increased financial outlay with Oracle implementation partner Version 1 to £21.5 million after initially tendering the contract for £7 million.

Version 1 was hired to “support the implementation of technical and change management aspects of the Oracle Cloud implementation and business change program,” according to the official documents.

The latest increase is due to an amendment to the Bank’s Application Management Service contract, including the “need for additional works, services or supplies” that “were not included in the initial procurement,” the notice says.

Another supplier could not meet these requirements for “economic or technical reasons such as requirements of interchangeability or interoperability with existing equipment, services or installations.” Any change in supplier might also “cause significant inconvenience or substantial duplication of costs,” it adds.

The latest increase is the second time the 330-year-old institution has upped the contract value. The procurement was first advertised for £7 million in 2022, and, after a competition, it was awarded to Version 1 for £8.7 million in September 2023.

In February last year, that figure was inflated to £13.8 million, with the bulk of the increase attributed to “amended implementation methodology, from a two-phase approach, to a multiple-phase approach with Oracle Modules going live based on the Bank’s priorities.”

At the time, a spokesperson said: “The Bank is implementing Oracle Cloud to consolidate several different systems which will help the Bank fulfil its mission. We aim to achieve value for money in all our procurement.”

The Bank of England is a public body that raises money regulating institutions, printing banknotes, banking services, management fees charged to government agencies, and investments built up over 300 years. It generates more income than it spends and contributes millions of pounds to the UK Treasury.

According to training provider Fudgelearn, the Bank of England is implementing Oracle Cloud SaaS Fusion Applications, including Finance, Procurement, Projects, Expenses, EPM, and Reporting.

The contract is “intended to deliver a step change in the capabilities and value delivered by the finance, procurement and recruitment functions in the Bank, leveraging the existing Oracle Cloud tool set to drive sustainable business change.”

Last week, the bank also awarded Oracle a £13 million contract to provide technical support for Oracle SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS.

In June 2025, the BoE said it would increase the maximum spending of a framework deal for a raft of services, including support for its complex configuration of SAP, “in particular Business Warehouse” and interoperability between multi-cloud environments and on-prem and shared datacenters. The maximum value of the arrangement was set at £60 million when it was awarded in September 2024. It was then increased to £86.7 million in a non-competitive award.