Banks, insurance companies, investment firms, and financial institutions face stringent regulatory oversight. Their vendor security requirements reflect that reality. If you are selling into financial services, SOC 2 is the minimum baseline — and it needs to be done properly. We help fintech companies and technology vendors build compliance programmes that meet the demands of financial services procurement.
10–12 weeks
98% of our SaaS clients
4–6 hrs/week during active phase
AWS, Azure, GCP — all scoped correctly
Fixed fee — agreed before we start
Financial institutions are themselves regulated entities. Their vendor due diligence programmes are designed to satisfy their own regulators’ expectations. When you sell to a bank, you are entering their regulatory supply chain.
SOC 2 Type 2 is the core requirement for US bank vendor due diligence. It provides independent assurance that your security controls are operating effectively. A strong SOC 2 report is a foundation for most financial institution vendor questionnaire responses — making the rest of the due diligence process significantly faster.
European banks, insurance companies, and financial institutions typically require ISO 27001 in addition to or instead of SOC 2. If you are selling to UK, EU, Middle Eastern, or Asia-Pacific financial institutions, ISO 27001 is the standard they recognise. We build SOC 2 and ISO 27001 simultaneously using shared controls.
Most financial institutions require completed vendor questionnaires — often SIG, CAIQ, or institution-specific formats. A SOC 2 report makes completing these questionnaires significantly faster, but it is one component of a full vendor due diligence response. We pre-build responses to common financial institution questionnaires alongside your certification programme.
Financial regulators require vendors to demonstrate they can maintain operations and recover from incidents. We build business continuity plans, disaster recovery procedures, and tested recovery capabilities specifically to meet the documentation standards that financial institution procurement teams require.
We build every control specifically for your company’s architecture and team capacity — not a generic checklist designed for a different type of organisation.
Fintech platforms handle some of the most sensitive personal data that exists — account numbers, transaction histories, credit scores, tax information, investment portfolios. Financial services buyers scrutinise the Confidentiality Trust Service Category closely. We ensure your programme addresses data classification, encryption, access controls, and data retention specifically in the context of financial information.
For payment processors, trading platforms, and financial data services, downtime has immediate and quantifiable financial consequences. Financial services buyers require documented SLAs, uptime monitoring, incident management procedures, and tested recovery capabilities. We build your Availability controls to meet the expectations of financial institution procurement teams.
Financial institution regulators expect robust change management. How software is tested before deployment, who approves releases, what rollback procedures exist, and how changes are documented are all areas financial services buyers examine in a SOC 2 engagement. We build change management controls that work for a modern engineering team while meeting financial buyer documentation standards.
If you use Plaid, Stripe, MX, or other financial data aggregators and payment infrastructure providers, your SOC 2 must address how you manage these relationships. Financial services buyers will ask about every vendor in your data supply chain. We map your subprocessor relationships and build the third-party risk programme that financial institution procurement teams require.
We assess your current controls against both SOC 2 Trust Services Criteria and ISO 27001 Annex A simultaneously — mapping the overlapping requirements so every control built serves both frameworks. You receive a single gap report covering both, with a prioritised implementation plan.
We implement the full control framework covering both SOC 2 and ISO 27001 requirements, using shared controls where they overlap to eliminate duplicated work. For fintech companies, particular focus goes to financial data access controls, change management, vendor risk, and availability controls.
SOC 2 mock audit conducted. ISO 27001 Stage 1 audit preparation completed. Evidence packages compiled for both frameworks. Your team is briefed on auditor interactions for both assessment types.
SOC 2 audit and ISO 27001 certification conducted. Both certifications issued. You receive your SOC 2 Type 2 report and ISO 27001 certificate — giving you the full compliance stack required by both US and international financial institution buyers.
SOC 2 Type 2 + ISO 27001 · 16 weeks
SOC 2 + ISO 27001 concurrent programme
Stalled bank partnerships unlocked
Time saved vs sequential programmes
If your question is not here, book a free consultation — a senior advisor will give you a direct answer in 30 minutes.
A SOC 2 Type 2 report is a strong foundation for bank vendor due diligence and satisfies the core security assessment requirement. However, most financial institutions also require a completed vendor questionnaire, penetration test results, business continuity documentation, and specific contractual provisions. SOC 2 makes completing their questionnaire significantly faster — but it is one component of a full vendor due diligence response, not a complete substitute.
SOC 2 covers security, availability, confidentiality, processing integrity, and privacy — relevant to almost all technology vendors. SOC 1 covers internal controls over financial reporting and is specifically relevant when your services directly affect how your customers account for financial transactions. If your platform processes payments, manages fund movements, handles payroll, or produces financial reports that customers rely on for their own financial statements, you likely need both. We assess your specific situation and recommend the right scope.
Payment platforms typically need SOC 2 Type 2 (for general vendor security requirements), PCI DSS compliance (if you store, process, or transmit cardholder data — required by the card networks), and potentially SOC 1 if your processing affects customers’ financial reporting. The exact combination depends on your card data handling model, your acquiring bank’s requirements, and your enterprise customers’ procurement standards. We scope this specifically for your business model.
We recommend two steps: first, provide a detailed description of your current security controls and an honest timeline for certification — many financial institutions will accept a vendor in-progress on SOC 2 if the timeline is credible. Second, start your SOC 2 programme immediately so the timeline you commit to is realistic. We help you draft the security control description and manage the certification timeline.
Yes — this is exactly what we do. Tier 1 banks have some of the most rigorous vendor security programmes in any industry. We have experience preparing fintech companies for these assessments, including helping clients complete SIG questionnaires, prepare for on-site vendor reviews, and build the compliance documentation that large bank information security teams require. Contact us and we will review your specific situation.
Book a free 30-minute consultation. A senior advisor — not a sales rep — will talk honestly about your compliance situation and exactly what it will take to get you where you need to be.
ISO 27001 certification — required by European and international financial institution buyers. Often run concurrently with SOC 2 for fintech companies expanding globally.
GDPR for fintech companies processing the financial data of European residents — including data portability and the right to erasure in a financial services context.
Before committing to a full programme, a gap assessment tells you where you stand and what needs to be built. Most fintech clients start here.
