In today’s fintech stack, real-time payments clear in seconds, open banking APIs (Application Programming Interface) fire thousands of calls a minute, and AI models approve credit before a human can blink. The pipes move faster than the rules that govern them, whether via the UK’s Faster Payments scheme or open banking. Against this backdrop, the idea that cybersecurity compliance means “passing the audit” looks quaint. In fintech, compliance has become a living system which is continuous, automated and tested under pressure, shaped by expectations such as the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA). This article explores how compliance is being constantly redefined, and what that means for each organisation.

From Checklists to Cyber Resilience

For years, cybersecurity compliance meant annual audits, static policy folders and compliance teams working at arm’s length from software engineers. That model struggles in fintech, where cloud-native platforms deploy code daily, rely on third-party APIs and operate permanently “live”. Modern compliance is therefore shifting towards operational resilience that proves that systems can absorb shocks and recover safely.

In practice, this means showing how things break. Leading UK payment firms now run regular incident simulations and penetration tests, treating incident response plans as living evidence rather than dusty documents, in line with guidance from the National Cyber Security Centre. Under the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act, boards are explicitly accountable for ICT risk and business continuity, forcing senior leaders to understand outages, not delegate them away.

Supervisors increasingly judge fintechs on behaviour under stress situations that show how quickly customers are protected, services restored and regulators informed. Paper controls matter less than demonstrable outcomes when something goes wrong.

Regulated at the Speed of Code

In high-growth fintechs, cybersecurity compliance is no longer a brake on innovation but a way to move faster with confidence. Leading firms now embed compliance checks directly into CI/CD pipelines, so security controls are tested every time code is deployed, not once a year. Cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) explicitly support this approach through continuous monitoring and automated evidence generation.

This has given rise to “compliance-as-code” where policies and controls are versioned like software, failures trigger alerts, and audit evidence is available in real time. UK scale-ups facing early regulatory scrutiny are using these techniques to satisfy supervisors while still shipping features weekly, reflecting expectations set out by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on operational resilience.

Globally, the incentives differ but the direction is similar. In the US, heavy litigation risk pushes fintechs towards provable, automated controls. In parts of Asia, rapid digital payments growth has led regulators to favour practical, technology-led oversight. In all cases, speed plus compliance has become a commercial advantage when partnering with banks, governments and large enterprises globally.

When Auditors Meet Algorithms

When auditors review fintech systems today, they are increasingly confronted by algorithms making decisions humans can no longer easily explain. AI-driven fraud detection flags transactions in milliseconds, credit models price risk dynamically, and automated monitoring systems learn as they run. Regulators, however, still demand explainability, traceability and clear accountability for outcomes. The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has made this explicit in its AI Auditing Framework, which stresses transparency and governance over automated decision-making.

This creates new compliance pressure. Model risk is now a cybersecurity issue, as poisoned data or manipulated inputs can distort decisions without triggering traditional security alerts. The National Cyber Security Centre has warned that machine-learning systems introduce novel attack surfaces that firms must actively manage.

Fintechs are responding by redesigning governance. Human-in-the-loop controls allow analysts to override or review automated decisions, while detailed audit trails log model changes, data sources and outcomes. In the UK, senior managers remain accountable for these systems under the Senior Managers and Certification Regime. In the EU, the AI Act reinforces this direction by requiring oversight and accountability for high-risk systems. Cybersecurity compliance has become inseparable from data ethics and algorithmic trust.

Beyond Box-Ticking in a Borderless World

Modern fintechs operate in a genuinely borderless environment. Cloud infrastructure may sit in one country, payment processing in another, and customers everywhere. A single cyber incident can therefore trigger regulatory, operational and reputational consequences across multiple jurisdictions at once. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has repeatedly highlighted how cross-border dependencies amplify systemic risk in financial services.

This creates new challenges. Heavy reliance on a small number of cloud and payments providers has introduced third-party concentration risk, while regulatory expectations remain fragmented by geography. A service outage affecting a global cloud provider can simultaneously disrupt UK firms, EU payment flows and customers in Asia, as seen in several high-profile incidents documented by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Leading fintechs are responding by setting global baseline security standards that exceed the minimum requirements of any single regulator. They run scenario tests assuming failures in different regions, time zones and legal regimes, rather than planning for one “home” regulator. In this world, leadership matters more than box-ticking and resilience depends on executives owning risk globally, not optimising compliance locally.

Trust Is the Currency

Customers rarely read cybersecurity policies, let alone regulatory disclosures. What they notice is whether payments clear, accounts stay available and personal data remains safe. By contrast, partners, investors and regulators scrutinise cyber governance closely. When due diligence fails, growth stops. High-profile licence delays and partnership withdrawals following cyber weaknesses illustrate how poor controls can quietly kill expansion, as the WEF have documented.

The inverse is equally true. Fintechs with demonstrable, well-run compliance programmes move faster, because banks onboard them more quickly, cloud providers grant broader privileges and regulators show greater supervisory confidence. The BIS has described cyber resilience as foundational to trust in modern financial systems, not an optional add-on. In this context, cybersecurity compliance is strategic infrastructure: a reputational asset and survival prerequisite. Without it, fintech scale stalls quickly.

The Systemic Threats That Could Break the Model

Fintech’s compliance model is being tested not at the margins, but at the core. A major cloud outage or payments infrastructure failure could cascade across markets in minutes, while a single supply-chain compromise could expose thousands of firms at once. Cyber risk is now systemic, not firm-specific, particularly where critical service providers are concentrated.

At the same time, AI-driven attacks are evolving faster than defensive regulation, and regulatory overload risks pushing innovation into less visible, less supervised spaces. The WEF notes that loss of trust following a high-impact cyber incident can rapidly destabilise entire financial ecosystems.

The uncomfortable question: is today’s model of cybersecurity compliance resilient enough for what comes next? The answer is not reassurance, but evolution, which is continuous, adaptive and led at the system level.

And what about you…?

  • Where do automated decisions in your business (fraud, credit, monitoring) rely on models that even your own teams struggle to explain or challenge?
  • Are you building compliance to satisfy a single regulator today, or designing it to withstand cross-border scrutiny, outages and systemic shocks tomorrow?