Sentinel ICCS has selected Macrium as its standard backup and recovery supplier, with deployment delivered through channel partner Clarion.

The agreement covers the industrial and operational technology environments Sentinel ICCS designs, secures and supports for customers in critical infrastructure sectors, including oil and gas, power, utilities, manufacturing and marine operations.

Formerly known as Eldor, Sentinel ICCS focuses on industrial control systems, operational technology and cybersecurity. Its customer environments often include legacy or unsupported systems, fully air-gapped networks and sites with no dedicated on-site IT support.

These conditions create recovery challenges when equipment fails. In some cases, replacement hardware or software is no longer available, making backup and restoration central to operational continuity.

Macrium said Sentinel ICCS chose its product because it can run backup and recovery processes without interrupting operational networks. The companies highlighted configurable network throttling, which allows backups to take place without affecting plant traffic.

Legacy systems

This matters in environments where industrial systems must remain available and many assets are ageing. In these settings, recovery tools must work within operational constraints rather than impose new ones on production systems.

By standardising on Macrium, Sentinel ICCS will use the product across the customer estates it supports where recovery speed and reliability are essential. The arrangement also gives it a single backup and recovery approach across multiple client environments.

“Our customers rely on technology that simply can’t afford to fail,” said Dave Joyce, chief executive officer of Macrium Software.

“The environments Sentinel ICCS supports present some of the toughest recovery challenges, with legacy systems, air-gapped networks and no margin for error. We’re proud that Sentinel ICCS has chosen Macrium to help ensure its customers recover quickly and confidently when it matters most,” Joyce said.

Sentinel ICCS said its work often involves industrial infrastructure running on software that is no longer commercially available, leaving operators with limited options if a system outage affects a critical process.

“We often protect critical infrastructure running on software you simply cannot buy anymore,” said Carl Townsend, managing director of Sentinel ICCS.

“If one of those systems fails, there often is not a replacement, so recovery has to work,” Townsend said.

Recovery focus

Macrium’s SiteBackup product will be used for central deployment and management of backup and recovery across the environments supported by Sentinel ICCS. The setup is intended to help manage dispersed or restricted sites from a central point.

The challenge is particularly acute in air-gapped environments, where systems are deliberately isolated from wider networks for security reasons. Such systems can be harder to maintain and recover because routine remote administration options are limited or unavailable.

Sentinel ICCS also linked the selection to service delivery, saying dependable recovery underpins the resilience it provides to infrastructure customers and supports its record on service-level agreement renewals.

“Macrium gives us the confidence that recovery will be there when we need it,” said Purna Kiran Mopidevi, service manager and cybersecurity specialist at Sentinel ICCS.

“There are a lot of tools that can take backups, but the ability to recover is what defines your cyber resilience,” Mopidevi said.

The decision reflects a broader emphasis in industrial cybersecurity on restoration as well as prevention. Operators of critical infrastructure increasingly have to plan how they will bring systems back after failures in environments where downtime can affect safety, output and essential services.

Macrium said other industrial groups, including Volvo, Sysmex and ABB, also use its products in operational technology and critical infrastructure settings. In Sentinel ICCS’s case, the focus is on environments where older systems and network isolation make recovery planning unusually complex.

The troubled supplier forked out more than £4 million in bonuses and boosted its chief executive pay to £1.2 million, new figures have shown.

Britain’s biggest water firm – which has been left on the brink of nationalisation as it struggles under a £20 billion debt pile – revealed in its annual report that bonuses of £4.09 million were paid to “key management personnel” as part of its so-called management retention plan.

It said the bonuses were made to board members and executives over the year to March 31, up from £2.8 million the previous year, and included performance-related and retention awards.

READ MORE: Thames Water profit, debt and bills all rise

The report also showed chief executive Chris Weston’s total pay rose to £1.16 million in the year to March 31, up from £1.04 million in 2024-45 after he picked up a £99,000 retention payment deferred from a previous year.

His basic pay was also hiked by 14 per cent from April 1 this year to £995,000.

Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds took aim at the Thames Water pay-outs, saying it adds to evidence that suppliers are side-stepping bans on bosses’ bonuses.

She said: “It’s outrageous that one of the worst-performing water companies is handing out bonuses and inflation-busting pay rises to its executives.

“It flies in the face of basic fairness, and the British public are right to be furious.

“We’ve banned bonuses for polluting water bosses and will be taking action to prevent bonuses by any other name.”

Last year’s Water (Special Measures) Act allowed regulator Ofwat to ban performance-related bonuses for bosses at utilities failing customers and the environment as part of the Government’s wider response to cracking down on the ailing sector.

Mr Weston said his £99,000 retention bonus was awarded before the Water (Special Measures) Act came into effect in June last year and the group confirmed he did not receive a performance-related pay-out for 2025-26.

But the firm has already caused controversy over retention payments to senior executives, seen as evading the ban.

It agreed last December amid outcry to pause £2.46 million of these payments to 21 top bosses – not thought to include Mr Weston – until further notice, having already paid out a similar amount earlier in the year.

In its annual report, Thames Water’s remuneration committee said: “The committee fully accepts and complies with the legal and regulatory position on performance-related pay but is concerned that the constraints now operating materially limit the extent to which the scale and challenge of the transformation being delivered can be reflected in total remuneration.

“The committee believes this creates a real risk to the retention of experienced leaders with the capability to deliver this transformation in exceptionally challenging circumstances.”

KAREN JOY BACUDO

Finance Editor

Ecommpay has urged merchants to check whether their Buy Now, Pay Later providers meet new UK regulatory requirements as full Financial Conduct Authority supervision begins for interest-free instalment products.

Lenders offering Deferred Payment Credit must now be authorised by the FCA or registered under the Temporary Permissions Regime to continue operating legally. Although the rules apply directly to lenders rather than retailers, they will affect how BNPL products are presented and managed at checkout.

Under the new regime, lenders must carry out affordability checks on every transaction, with the depth of those checks linked to risk. Purchases under £50 are no longer exempt. Lenders must also give customers clear upfront information on payment dates, amounts and the consequences of missed payments.

New arrears rules require prompt contact with customers who miss payments, reasonable notice before enforcement action, and signposting to free debt advice. Consumers with eligible complaints about Deferred Payment Credit agreements can also take their cases to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Ecommpay warned merchants not to assume they are insulated from the consequences of a lender failing to meet the new standards. Problems involving a BNPL option can still damage the retailer’s customer experience and brand.

“BNPL has always been credit – regulation is simply catching up,” said Alpa Jotangia, Head of Compliance at Ecommpay.

“And critically it isn’t just a technical change for BNPL providers; it changes the checkout conversation for everyone. The reality is that consumers don’t separate the lender, the payment provider and the retailer in their minds. They remember the checkout experience, the refund experience, and how they were treated when something went wrong. If a BNPL partner falls short, it’s the merchant’s brand that’s likely to be impacted.”

Merchant checks

Retailers using BNPL at checkout should verify that each provider is either FCA-authorised or registered under the temporary regime. They should also review the customer journey to assess how repayment terms are displayed, how affordability checks are handled, and what happens when a customer returns an item or falls into arrears.

Merchants should also ask lenders how they meet their regulatory duties, including disclosure, refund handling and support for vulnerable customers. Ecommpay presented those steps as practical checks for retailers reviewing their existing payment setup.

The changes mark a significant shift for a market that expanded quickly under lighter oversight. BNPL products have become a common feature of online checkout in recent years, particularly for lower-value retail purchases, and the move brings them more closely into line with other forms of consumer credit.

For lenders, the rules introduce operational demands around underwriting, disclosures and arrears management. For merchants, the concern is less about direct regulatory exposure and more about whether a provider’s compliance processes introduce delays, confusion or disruption at the point of sale.

Jotangia said the sector would need to balance consumer safeguards with a simple user experience.

“The payments industry has spent years removing friction from checkout, but friction is not always failure when it comes to offering credit – sometimes it’s protection,” she said.

“The winners in the regulated BNPL market will be the providers that make responsible credit feel clear, intuitive and proportionate, and that’s where payments expertise matters. Payments service providers like Ecommpay can help merchants ensure their payment journeys work smoothly alongside compliant BNPL offers, delivering a checkout that converts. The next phase of BNPL won’t be defined by who has the most prominent button at checkout – it will be defined by trust.”