INDIA, June 17, 2025 – According to the IDC report, The Digital Operational Resilience Act: What Does It Mean for Asia/Pacific Financial Institutions, financial institutions (FIs) across Asia/Pacific are preparing for a wave of regulatory changes inspired by the European Union’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA). While DORA is rooted in the EU, its core principles, such as ICT risk governance, third-party oversight, and standardized incident reporting, are rapidly gaining traction across Asia/Pacific markets including Singapore, Australia, India, and Hong Kong.
This growing momentum toward regulatory alignment reflects a broader shift among financial institutions in the region as they reevaluate their operational resilience strategies in response to increasingly digital, interconnected, and vulnerable ecosystems. The IDC report outlines five foundational pillars of DORA: risk management, ICT third-party oversight, resilience testing, incident reporting, and information and intelligence sharing. These pillars are now shaping global compliance expectations and influencing how regulators structure their mandates across borders. As a result, Asia/Pacific FIs are being compelled to act swiftly, not only to meet new requirements but also to strengthen resilience and trust in the face of evolving cyber and operational risks.
“Asia/Pacific financial institutions must recognize DORA not merely as a European compliance mandate but as a foundational architecture for digital operational resilience,” says Sakshi Grover, senior research manager, Cybersecurity Products and Services, IDC Asia/Pacific. “The convergence of AI-driven risk analytics, compliance automation, and advanced third-party governance is accelerating regulatory maturity. This enables institutions to implement continuous control monitoring, predictive security intelligence, and real-time compliance validation.”
Financial institutions in Asia/Pacific are increasingly adopting automated GRC platforms, AI-enabled threat detection tools, and continuous monitoring solutions to align with emerging DORA-inspired mandates. This shift reflects the region’s growing focus on regulatory resilience, especially as financial ecosystems become more digitized, interconnected, and susceptible to cyber disruptions. IDC’s 2024 Asia/Pacific Security Survey indicates that in the next 12–18 months, financial institutions across the region will continue to prioritize investments in governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) services as a critical pillar of their cybersecurity strategy. As DORA expands compliance obligations to include third-party ICT service providers, financial institutions across Asia/Pacific are beginning to reassess their vendor ecosystems to ensure alignment with evolving risk governance mandates and avoid compliance gaps.
Regulatory bodies across key markets, including Singapore, Australia, India, and Hong Kong, are also advancing mandates that reflect DORA’s principles. These include the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Technology Risk Management guidelines, Australia’s CPS 230, and strengthened incident disclosure requirements in India and Hong Kong. Together, these developments signal a clear trajectory toward regulatory convergence in the region.
In parallel, security and compliance automation platforms are rapidly evolving from checklist-based tools to real-time trust management engines, offering continuous control monitoring, automated evidence collection, and audit readiness at scale. Vendors are enabling organizations to shift from static compliance reporting to dynamic, API-driven frameworks that support real-time visibility into security posture and regulatory adherence across multi-cloud environments. As regulatory expectations grow more stringent, solution providers are building platforms that unify risk assessment, policy enforcement, and third-party trust workflows thereby accelerating audit cycles and reducing manual overhead for security teams.
What Tech Buyers Should Prioritize Going Forward:
1. Invest in platforms that support continuous control monitoring (CCM) to ensure real-time oversight of compliance obligations, enabling organizations to replace periodic audits with automated, always-on control assessments. These tools should centralize evidence collection, map technical controls across multiple regulatory standards (e.g., DORA, MAS TRM, CPS 230), and reduce manual audit workload.
2. Adopt AI-powered GRC solutions that leverage machine learning to detect anomalies, correlate risk signals, and automate cross-regulatory reporting. Look for platforms that integrate with trust attestation workflows and security certifications to enhance transparency and demonstrate compliance to regulators and customers alike.
3. Implement robust third-party risk management tools that enable automated onboarding, continuous monitoring of vendor security posture, and integration with procurement and legal systems. These capabilities help streamline supplier oversight, strengthen contractual governance, and reduce exposure to systemic supply chain risks.
4. Strengthen cloud security posture by investing in solutions that assess misconfigurations, enforce compliance across hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructures, and integrate with DevOps pipelines for early detection and proactive remediation. This supports shift-left security while ensuring consistent policy enforcement in dynamic environments.
5. Prioritize platforms that support end-to-end resilience testing including red teaming, tabletop exercises, and attack simulations. These tools help validate operational readiness and align with evolving regulatory expectations under frameworks like DORA. Dynamic risk modeling that aggregates internal telemetry and external threat intelligence can further support enterprise-wide visibility and incident response preparedness.
Data referenced here is from IDC’s report “The Digital Operational Resilience Act: What Does It Mean for Asia/Pacific Financial Institutions ”, published in March 2025. The report examines the global influence of the European Union’s DORA regulation and its implications for financial institutions across Asia/Pacific. It explores how regulators and enterprises in markets such as Singapore, Australia, India, and Hong Kong are aligning with DORA’s principles across five foundational pillars. The report also analyzes evolving investment priorities, including the rise of AI-enabled compliance tools, continuous control monitoring, and cloud risk governance. This research provides strategic guidance for security vendors, compliance platform providers, and technology decision makers seeking to navigate the growing regulatory convergence and digital trust expectations in the financial services sector.
To learn more about this IDC report, contact Sakshi Grover at sgrover@idc.com or click HERE. For media queries, please contact Michael De La Cruz at mdelacruz@idc.com or Miguel Carreon mcarreon@idc.com. You can also follow IDC Asia/Pacific’s Twitter and LinkedIn pages for regular updates on IDC’s research & events.
-Ends-
About IDC
International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,300 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDC’s analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives. Founded in 1964, IDC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the world’s leading tech media, data and marketing services company. To learn more about IDC, please visit www.idc.com. Follow IDC on Twitter at @IDCAP and LinkedIn. Subscribe to the IDC Blog for industry news and insights.