In an era where regulatory frameworks like DORA and FCA PS21/3  and PRA PS6/21 demand higher standards for financial resilience, European financial entities face growing pressures to ensure compliance and operational excellence. To understand these challenges, we spoke with Lee Fredricks, Director of Solutions Consulting for EMEA at PagerDuty. Lee’s expertise in regulatory compliance and his work with financial entities across Europe provide valuable insights into navigating compliance demands, building resilience, and leveraging technology for agile operations.

How can financial leaders navigate the complexities of advanced tech adoption while staying compliant?
Advanced tech is a double-edged sword—it drives innovation but also increases risks, which is why regulations like DORA and the equivalent FCA/PRA regulations are becoming more stringent. Staying on top of these rules is key to staying secure and resilient.

Most organizations use monitoring tools to catch threats, but the sheer number of alerts can be daunting. That’s where PagerDuty comes in—it finds the signal in the noise, gets the right teams notified, and automates workflows to resolve issues faster. This not only helps with compliance but also returns time for innovation and proactive, preventative operations work.

How are DORA and FCA/PRA policies reshaping priorities for financial entities, and what are the consequences of non-compliance?
DORA and the UK equivalents take long-standing expectations and turn them into a clear framework for compliance. The first step for most companies is a gap analysis to spot and address any weaknesses.

Operational resilience is a must. You need to define your key services, set recovery times, and hit those targets to avoid penalties and keep customer trust intact. Compliance isn’t just about avoiding fines—it’s about protecting your brand and providing an excellent customer experience.

What challenges do financial entities face under DORA and the UK regulations, and how can they build resilience?
Reliable data is key for meeting strict incident reporting and recovery standards. During major incidents, manual data collection often leads to inconsistencies. That’s why PagerDuty automates this process—capturing time-stamped data and syncing it across platforms like Jira or ServiceNow. It gives you an auditable trail that is ready for regulator or internal reviews.

Strong incident management is just as important. Best practices include using AI to derive actionable insights and taking advantage of PagerDuty’s event orchestration and workflow capabilities to cut down on manual work. Automation should handle the initial recovery steps, letting human responders step in only when needed. Post-incident reviews are essential—not just for internal improvements but also for showing regulators that your team is always learning.

How can AI and automation streamline compliance and incident management?
AI and ML recognize patterns and correlate events, reducing noise and quickly routing incidents to the right place. Automation takes it further and acts like a virtual first responder, tackling common issues using pre-set patterns and runbooks. In addition, PagerDuty’s GenAI drafts clear, consistent updates for stakeholders and can also create brand new automation scripts and runbooks, saving teams valuable time.

How does the PagerDuty Operations Cloud help financial entities manage compliance and resilience?
The Operations Cloud helps teams prepare for the inevitable. Both the EU and UK Acts place a heavy focus on regular operational resilience testing. The Operations Cloud assists our customers in running these simulations, refining their processes, and introducing improvements to their response and recovery plans.

Because the Operations Cloud is also an Operations ‘Hub’, PagerDuty can also take care of updating your systems of record, synchronising them with all the activity details, communication logs, and resolution steps gathered during an incident. This helps companies prepare reports and communicate with regulators.

How do AI and automation support resilience and efficiency in financial operations?
Automation removes routine tasks so teams can focus on resilience and bigger strategic goals. Self-service automation lets developers handle their own requests, reducing bottlenecks and freeing up Operations teams to work on high-impact projects.

PagerDuty’s tools simplify daily operations, helping teams stay compliant while driving innovation. By automating repetitive work and encouraging self-sufficiency, financial entities can build stronger resilience and support growth.

Automation lets teams respond to incidents immediately, cutting recovery and resolution times. PagerDuty’s Gen AI assistant, PagerDuty Advance, goes a step further by analyzing incident timelines and generating detailed post-incident reviews with actionable insights for further review. This speeds up recovery and helps teams continuously improve.

To learn more, check out the PagerDuty Financial Services web page.