Zero Trust Reshapes EU Financial Compliance

The European Union’s Digital Operational Resilience Act, or DORA, and its NIS2 cybersecurity directive are shifting financial-sector compliance from periodic audits toward continuous risk management. Zero Trust — built on the principle of never granting implicit trust and repeatedly verifying users, devices and activity — offers banks and other financial institutions a framework for tightening access controls, protecting transaction integrity and managing threats linked to outside technology providers.

DORA became fully applicable on Jan. 17, 2025, requiring covered EU financial entities to strengthen incident reporting, resilience testing and oversight of third-party information and communications technology risks. The deadline for member states to transpose NIS2 into national law was Oct. 17, 2024. Neither regime explicitly mandates Zero Trust, but regulatory-technology providers say combining security models with granular permissions and continuous transaction verification is increasingly central to meeting the tougher standard.