The short answer
Cyber security for financial services means meeting the security standards your regulators, card schemes and partners set, then proving it. For most UK firms that means PCI DSS wherever card data is handled, PCI PIN and card production for issuers and processors, annual penetration testing, Cyber Essentials or ISO 27001 for supplier checks, and evidence for operational resilience or DORA.
On this page
- What does cyber security for financial services involve?
- What are the main cyber threats to financial services firms?
- Which standards apply to financial services firms?
- Cyber Essentials for financial services: do finance sector firms need it?
- What penetration testing do banks and payment firms need?
- Operational resilience and DORA in brief
- Banking, fintech and payments: where to go next
- Why Sovereign Secure
- Next step
Cyber security for financial services firms is mostly about proving your controls to the people who regulate you, partner with you and buy from you. For firms regulated by the FCA and PRA, card schemes and banking partners, that proof comes from a small set of standards: PCI DSS wherever card data is handled, PCI PIN and card production for issuers and processors, annual penetration testing, Cyber Essentials or ISO 27001 for supplier checks, and testing evidence for UK operational resilience rules or the EU’s DORA.
This page maps those standards across the sector and links to the page that covers each one in full.
What does cyber security for financial services involve?
It involves three things: protecting the data and systems behind your services, meeting the security standards that apply to your business model, and producing evidence that regulators, card schemes and customers accept. Which standards apply depends on what you do:
- Banks and building societies that issue or acquire cards face PCI DSS, often PCI PIN and card production as well, plus SWIFT and operational resilience.
- Payment and e-money firms usually validate PCI DSS as service providers and are in scope of the FCA’s operational resilience rules.
- Card issuers and processors may need PCI PIN, PCI 3DS and point-to-point encryption (P2PE) assessments alongside PCI DSS.
- Lenders, wealth managers and insurers take card payments, hold large volumes of personal data and are asked for Cyber Essentials, ISO 27001 and penetration test evidence by partners and brokers.
UK GDPR applies throughout, because card and account data is personal data.
What are the main cyber threats to financial services firms?
Financial services firms face the same attacks as other organisations, aimed at far more valuable targets: money movement, card and account data, and services customers rely on every day.
| Threat | How it usually happens | What reduces it |
|---|---|---|
| Ransomware and extortion | Stolen credentials, phishing or an unpatched internet-facing system lets attackers encrypt or steal data; the November 2023 attack on the US broker-dealer arm of ICBC disrupted trading in the US Treasury market | MFA, prompt patching, segmentation, offline backups and internal penetration testing |
| Third-party and supplier compromise | Attackers reach you through a software supplier, managed service provider or file-transfer platform, as in the 2023 mass exploitation of MOVEit Transfer | Supplier due diligence, certificates such as Cyber Essentials or ISO 27001 from suppliers, contract terms and regular access reviews |
| Authorised push payment (APP) fraud | Criminals trick customers into sending money to accounts they control; since 7 October 2024 UK payment firms have had to reimburse eligible victims under rules introduced by the Payment Systems Regulator | Confirmation of Payee, transaction monitoring, warnings at the point of payment and testing of payment journeys |
| Account takeover | Credential stuffing, SIM swaps and social engineering of help desks against online banking and apps | Strong customer authentication, device binding, rate limits and API penetration testing |
| DDoS attacks | Floods of traffic that take online banking or payment pages offline, often by hacktivist groups | DDoS protection from your network or cloud provider, tested failover and operational resilience planning |
| Insider risk | Staff or contractors misusing access to data, payments or cryptographic keys | Least privilege, split knowledge and dual control, logging and monitoring |
Most firms will recognise these from their own risk register. What differs between firms is the evidence that regulators, card schemes and partners expect, which the standards below provide.
Which standards apply to financial services firms?
Most firms meet three or four of these at once. The table shows who each one applies to and how it is validated.
| Standard | Who it applies to | How it is validated | Our page |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCI DSS v4.0.1 | Anyone who stores, processes or transmits card data: merchants, issuers, acquirers, processors and payment service providers | Self-Assessment Questionnaire or a QSA’s Report on Compliance, with an Attestation of Compliance, every year | PCI compliance services |
| PCI PIN Security Requirements | Acquirers and processors that handle PINs, ATM and POS networks, key injection facilities | Assessment by a Qualified PIN Assessor (QPA), as the card brands require | PCI PIN security assessments |
| PCI Card Production and Provisioning | Card manufacturers, personalisers, PIN mailer and mobile provisioning services | Assessment by a Card Production Security Assessor (CPSA) | Card production audits |
| PCI 3DS Core Security Standard | Entities running a 3DS Server, Access Control Server or Directory Server | Assessment by a 3DS Assessor | PCI 3DS assessments |
| PCI P2PE | Providers of point-to-point encryption solutions | Assessment by a P2PE Assessor, then listing by the PCI SSC | PCI P2PE assessments |
| Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus | Any organisation; often asked of suppliers to banks, insurers and government | Certification by an IASME-licensed certification body, renewed every year | Cyber Essentials Plus |
| ISO 27001 | Any organisation that wants a certified information security management system | Certification audit by an independent certification body, with yearly surveillance audits | ISO 27001 consultancy |
| SOC 2 | B2B fintech and software firms selling to US enterprise buyers | Report issued by a licensed CPA firm | SOC 2 compliance |
| DORA | EU financial entities, including EU subsidiaries of UK groups, and their ICT third-party providers by contract | Supervised by national competent authorities | DORA regulation |
| SWIFT Customer Security Programme | Every SWIFT user | Annual attestation, backed by an independent internal or external assessment | SWIFT CSP |
PCI DSS is enforced through your contracts with acquirers and the card brands, and our UK guide explains whether PCI compliance is a legal requirement in the UK. The PCI standards and their supporting documents are free from the PCI SSC document library.
Cyber Essentials for financial services: do finance sector firms need it?
No FCA or PRA rule requires Cyber Essentials, but many financial services firms need it anyway. Banks, insurers, payment partners and public sector buyers ask for it in supplier due diligence, and Procurement Policy Note 014 requires it for in-scope UK central government contracts. It is also a quick way for a young firm to evidence the five technical controls (firewalls, secure configuration, security update management, user access control and malware protection) before a full ISO 27001 programme. The NCSC’s Cyber Essentials overview sets out the scheme.
Three points matter in practice:
- Scope. Cloud services such as Microsoft 365 and the AWS, Azure or Google Cloud accounts you manage are in scope, as is every device that accesses company data, including personal ones. Under the Danzell question set, used for assessment accounts created from 27 April 2026, the scope must also name every legal entity covered.
- Automatic fails. Under Danzell, missing multi-factor authentication on a cloud service that offers it, or missing the 14-day deadline for high-risk and critical updates, fails the assessment on its own.
- Basic or Plus. Partners that want independent verification ask for Cyber Essentials Plus, which adds hands-on technical testing by an assessor and must be completed within three months of the basic certificate.
Sovereign Secure is an IASME-licensed certification body for Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus.
What penetration testing do banks and payment firms need?
Penetration testing for financial services firms starts with the testing PCI DSS Requirement 11.4 sets for every system in scope: internal and external penetration tests at least once every 12 months and after any significant change, including the application layer, with exploitable findings fixed and retested. Firms that use segmentation to reduce scope must test it every 12 months, or every six months for service providers. Our PCI penetration testing page covers Requirement 11.4 in detail, and payment apps, APIs and online banking need the same manual, authenticated testing whether or not they are in PCI scope.
Some of the largest firms also face threat-led testing schemes, which are separate from routine penetration tests:
| Scheme | Who it applies to | What it involves |
|---|---|---|
| CBEST | UK firms selected by the Bank of England, the PRA and the FCA | An intelligence-led test of live systems, run under the regulators’ framework with its own approved providers |
| DORA TLPT | EU financial entities identified by their competent authority | Threat-led penetration testing of critical or important functions at least every three years, under the DORA technical standards and with its own tester rules |
Both are intelligence-led red team exercises with their own approved providers and rules. Our guide to threat-led penetration testing (TLPT) under DORA explains how the schemes compare, and our red team assessments page explains how red team testing works outside a regulated scheme.
Operational resilience and DORA in brief
UK operational resilience. The PRA and FCA rules require banks, building societies, insurers, payment and e-money firms and others in scope to identify their important business services, set impact tolerances, map and test them, and, since 31 March 2025, stay within those tolerances in severe but plausible scenarios. Our operational resilience guide explains the regime and where testing evidence fits.
DORA. The EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act has applied since 17 January 2025 to EU financial entities, including EU subsidiaries of UK groups. It requires yearly testing of the ICT systems that support critical or important functions, and it reaches UK firms that supply ICT services to EU financial entities through contract terms, audit rights and requests for test results. Our DORA regulation guide covers who is in scope and what each article requires. ICT and managed service providers with EU operations or EU customers may also fall under the NIS2 directive, the EU’s wider cyber security law.
Banking, fintech and payments: where to go next
| If you are | Start with |
|---|---|
| A bank, building society or card issuer | Cyber security and PCI compliance for banks |
| A payment, e-money or open banking firm | Fintech cyber security |
| A SWIFT user preparing an attestation | SWIFT CSP guide |
| Any firm that handles card data | PCI compliance services |
| A supplier asked for independent verification | Cyber Essentials Plus |
Why Sovereign Secure
- PCI SSC-approved assessor. Sovereign Secure is a Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) company, a Qualified PIN Assessor (QPA), a Card Production Security Assessor (CPSA), a P2PE Assessor and a 3DS Assessor, and a member of the PCI SSC Global Executive Assessor Roundtable (GEAR) for 2026 to 2028.
- IASME-licensed certification body for Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus.
- ISO 27001 certified ourselves. We provide ISO 27001 consultancy, with certification audits by our partner certification body, MQA International.
- Testing across the stack: web, API, mobile, cloud, network and hardware penetration testing, plus vulnerability scanning, with external ASV scans delivered through our PCI SSC Approved Scanning Vendor partner.
- Financial services clients shown on our site include Ahli United Bank, Kuwait Finance House, AYA Bank, Bank of Palestine, Cashplus and Fiserv, with a testimonial from First National of Nebraska; see our clients.
Sovereign Secure Ltd is a UK company (Companies House 08334453), headquartered in Accrington, Lancashire, with offices in Los Angeles, Singapore, Dubai and Dhaka.
Next step
Tell us what your regulator, card scheme, sponsor bank or customer has asked for, and which systems and entities are in scope. We will say which assessment or test answers that request first and send a fixed quote. Use the enquiry form on this page, choosing “PCI DSS Assessments” or “Penetration Testing”, or call +44 161 523 5276.
Last reviewed October 2026 by the Sovereign Secure assessment team.
