Episode 64

Understanding DORA's Impact: Your Fintech's Partners Could Be Your Biggest Risk | Wayne Scott, Regulatory Compliance Lead at Escode

DORA is here and if you are a FinTech in Europe you MUST listen to this conversation!  DORA is the Digital Operational Resilience Act that is effective from 17th Jan, 2025; and will affect all FinTech partners – yes it’s a biggy one; potentially bigger than GDPR!

In this pod I speak with Wayne Scott, Regulatory Compliance Solutions Lead at Escode.  Wayne brings his extensive global regulatory expertise and breaks down why this new European regulation is a game-changer for FinTechs worldwide - and why we should be paying attention NOW.

🔑 Key Highlights on DORA:

  • DORA goes into effect January 17th, affecting 15,000+ financial institutions and 7-8,000 fintechs
  • Unlike previous regulations, DORA extends to ALL critical suppliers and partners in the fintech ecosystem
  • Potential fines could reach 2% of global revenue PER DAY for non-compliance
  • The regulation impacts any company providing services into Europe, regardless of their location
  • Not just about security - DORA focuses on operational resilience, supplier failure, and concentration risk

We discuss how regulation actually spurs innovation rather than stifling it, diving deep into the practical implications of Europe's new Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and its global ripple effects; explore the concept of operational contagion in our interconnected fintech ecosystem, and how businesses need to prepare for the AI revolution from a regulatory standpoint. 

We go wide and talk critical supply chain risk management, demystifying the process of identifying and protecting vital business infrastructure, and the future of global financial regulation in 2025 and beyond. 

We cover: 

[00:10:00] What is DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act) explained in plain English

[00:10:25] The scope: Affects 15,000 financial institutions and 7-8,000 fintechs

[00:11:29] Why you can't argue your way out of DORA compliance

[00:11:49] Understanding critical services - from cloud providers to core systems

[00:15:10] The five key principles for DORA compliance checklist

[00:30:22] Redefining Business Resilience - Beyond just "getting up and trying again"

[00:31:43] The real meaning of resilience in fintech operations

[00:35:03] Understanding Operational Contagion and its domino effects

[00:36:20] Real-world example: How a single outage affected global operations

[00:37:33] The Silicon Valley Bank case study - When operational fails trigger financial contagion

[00:39:35] AI's impact on financial services regulation

[00:41:00] How AI could make current tech companies obsolete

[00:42:15] Managing the risks of rapid AI adoption in financial services

[00:48:57] The regulatory roadmap for 2025 and beyond

🚀 Your Action Items:

  1. Assign someone to own DORA compliance
  2. Map your critical suppliers and infrastructure
  3. Document policies and procedures
  4. Test scenario capabilities

👉 Connect with Scott:

👉 Connect with Monica:

Disclaimer: This episode does not constitute professional nor financial advice and does not represent the opinion nor views of my current, past or future employers. The guest has agreed to record and release our conversation for the use of this podcast and promotion in social media.

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About your host

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Monica Millares

Monica advocates for financial safety for all. She is the Product Principal at BigPay, where she leads Product and Design. As part of the founding team, Monica led building BigPay’s product from zero to one, to multi product line, and international expansion. Her leadership shaped the culture and ways of working to grow from startup to scaleup. BigPay has over 1.4 million customers, and has presence in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

Monica has almost 20 years’ experience in Financial Services. Prior to BigPay, she was one of the first joiners in UK’s challenger Tandem Bank, where she focused on building credit cards from scratch. Previously she worked in leading Financial Services brands like Visa, Barclays, and a Mexican Development Bank.

She sits on the Board of PayEd, and is recognised as Singapore’s #Fintech65 Product Leaders and Women in FinTech. She’s been multiple times speaker at the prestigious conference Money2020 and shared stage with JP Morgan, Standard Chartered Bank, Konsentus, and Money2020’s Rise Up. Her commitment to innovation and financial inclusion resonates in her podcast “Purpose Driven FinTech” where she explores how FinTech’s can have 10x more impact.

Monica has a background in Engineering and a Master’s Degree on Analysis, Design, and Management of Information Systems from the London School of Economics.