What is DORA? The EU rules on tech resilience for financial firms
By SendPay Business · · 2 min read
DORA, the Digital Operational Resilience Act, is an EU law that makes financial firms prove they can withstand and recover from IT problems and cyber attacks. It has applied since 17 January 2025 and covers banks, payment and e-money institutions, crypto firms, insurers and more.
DORA's five main areas
- ICT risk management: firms need a framework to identify, protect against and recover from tech risks.
- Incident reporting: major IT incidents must be classified and reported to regulators.
- Resilience testing: systems must be tested regularly, with advanced testing for larger firms.
- Third-party risk: contracts with tech suppliers, such as cloud providers, must meet set standards.
- Information sharing: firms are encouraged to share threat information with each other.
Tech suppliers are in scope too
DORA lets EU authorities directly oversee tech providers judged critical to the financial sector, such as major cloud platforms. That's new, as rules used to apply only to the financial firms themselves.
What it means for fintechs
Fintechs serving EU customers need clear records of their systems and suppliers, tested recovery plans and a way to report serious incidents quickly. Working with partners who already meet these rules takes much of that load off.
Where SendPay fits
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This guide is general information, not legal or financial advice. SendPay Business is a technology company, not a bank, and does not take deposits; regulated services on the platforms are provided by licensed partners. PayPal, Patreon and Substack are named as reference points only and are not affiliated with SendPay Business.