Current global and local regulatory requirements forcing businesses to enhance cybersecurity controls while minimising operational risks. In fact, 91 percent of industry leaders view looming cybersecurity threats as a concern, making attainment and sustainability of compliance more important than ever. In this article we will discover the main challenges businesses face with compliance and provide some tips on how to overcome them.
Compliance Complexities
Examples include DORA, NIS2, and the EU AI Act. Each aims at strengthening cybersecurity and operational resilience. However, with this increased focus on compliance, most firms are failing to cope efficiently with the regulatory demands. The biggest challenge, however, is that it's not cohesive throughout the organisation. While executives might feel they are in real-time visibility about compliance, the operation teams use a manual process that has outdated reporting. While 92 percent of executives feel they have real-time visibility into compliance, only 69 percent of management professionals believe so. This creates inefficiency, miscommunication, and possibly noncompliance.
Yet most of the heavy lifting in compliance is done by InfoSec professionals: 38 percent of them described the impact of these requirements as "very significant." Next comes risk management professionals at 29 percent and IT professionals at 28 percent. All in all, increased workload amplifies the risk of noncompliance as teams may try to juggle daily operations along with regulatory requirements.
The Long Road to Compliance
In fact, even those organisations who claim to be well on track with regulatory requirements, lack many of the fundamental components of compliance, setting them highly exposed to security risks. While 63% of the firms said they've established transparency measures, only 55% had risk management frameworks, and just 51% perform deep risk assessments.
More organisations were prioritising compliance with NIS2, though only 52 percent claimed full compliance, with another 44 percent seeking to do so in the next year. These are potential financial and reputational risk areas where some compliance gaps can occur, for which proactive steps should be undertaken by firms.
Leveraging Technology
Probably the most efficient way to ease the compliance effort for firms is to integrate all in one payment solution that embed compliance features directly into business operations. A trusted payment gateway partner will be able to ensure that the transactions meet regulatory standards while minimizing operational risk.
With further developments in the regulatory framework, firms should show more initiative on matters of compliance. Moreover, businesses can minimise risks by bridging internal disconnects, managing challenges related to workload, and leveraging all-in-one payment solutions. With a reliable partner it is easy to twist these regulatory challenges into opportunities for growth and security if the required tools and strategy are put in place.
