Attributed to Sean Tilley, Senior Director Sales EMEA, 11:11 Systems
The UK financial services sector has always been a bellwether for global markets, but today it is navigating a perfect storm. Digital innovation is accelerating, regulatory oversight is intensifying, and customer expectations for always-on services have never been higher. Against this backdrop, cyber threats are evolving with alarming sophistication.
As KPMG notes in its 2025 Cybersecurity Considerations report: “CISOs must now manage a wide attack surface, respond rapidly to incidents, and embed resilience into every layer of their operations. Technology alone is not enough; cybersecurity must be aligned with business objectives and supported by executive leadership.” This is particularly true for IT leaders in the financial sector, where the challenge is not just about deploying technology that can withstand the pressures facing the industry, but also securing the executive commitment required to make resilience and compliance a strategic priority.
Threats, Regulations and Customer Demands
The threat environment is stark. Ransomware has become an industrialised business model, supply chain attacks are proliferating, and insider risks are harder than ever to detect. When disruptions do occur, they rarely end with the technical breach itself. The fallout includes prolonged outages, regulatory scrutiny, reputational damage, and an erosion of customer trust that can take years to rebuild or, in the most severe cases, result in its permanent closure. Financial firms sit at the epicentre of this risk because they hold highly valuable data and form the backbone of the economy. Criminals understand this, and so do regulators.
What is striking is the significant shift in regulatory focus that has occurred in recent years. It is no longer sufficient for firms to demonstrate compliance on paper; they must prove operational resilience in practice. The FCA’s Operational Resilience Policy, the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), GDPR, and the continuing relevance of ISO 27001 all represent a tightening of expectations that firms will not only manage risk but also withstand it. Compliance has become inseparable from resilience. Failure to demonstrate that resilience carries not only the risk of financial penalty but also the reputational harm that follows headlines about outages, data breaches or regulatory censures.
At the same time, customers have raised the bar even higher. Financial services are now consumed as digital utilities, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, expecting uninterrupted access, seamless experiences, and assurances around data security. Downtime, even brief, can lead to significant customer attrition. In a hyper-competitive market, brand loyalty is fragile.
Lack of Board Support
The paradox is that, despite this convergence of threats, regulation, and customer demands, many IT leaders still struggle to secure meaningful buy-in from their boards. Several factors conspire to make this difficult. Cyber resilience initiatives often compete with revenue-generating projects for budget and attention, and too often they are framed as defensive cost centres rather than enablers of long-term growth. The technical complexity of resilience also creates barriers, as non-technical executives may disengage from jargon-heavy discussions that fail to translate risk into business terms.
Compounding these challenges is the perception that the probability of a major disruption is low, despite evidence to the contrary. Further, the responsibility for resilience and compliance is frequently fragmented across IT, operations, risk, and compliance functions, diluting accountability and slowing decisive action.
This gap between risk reality and boardroom perception is perhaps the most dangerous vulnerability of all. It leaves institutions vulnerable not just to attack but also to regulatory criticism and competitive disadvantage. Bridging it requires a different approach from IT leaders.
Reframing Resilience
Resilience must be reframed from being a technical safeguard to a business imperative. The language of infrastructure and controls must evolve to that of financial risk, customer trust, and brand equity. Executives must see resilience as intrinsic to protecting revenue streams, enabling digital transformation, and sustaining market credibility. Evidence is essential in making this case. There is no shortage of real-world examples that highlight the cost of downtime, regulatory penalties, and customer attrition, following from a breach, even amongst highly respected and regarded brands.
Equally important is clarity. Senior leaders are drawn to simplicity and accountability. Proposals that streamline complexity, reduce vendor sprawl, and establish clear lines of responsibility are far more compelling than sprawling, siloed initiatives. Resilience strategies should be presented as enablers of broader strategic goals, from accelerating product launches to supporting expansion into new markets.
Crucially, executive buy-in cannot be treated as a one-off hurdle to clear. It requires continuous engagement, with regular updates on emerging threats, evolving regulatory demands, and the measurable value of resilience investments. Boards need to understand the risk of inaction and also see the strategic advantage of embedding resilience at the core of their business model.
Looking ahead
The future of UK financial services will be shaped by a combination of innovation in digital channels, payments, and customer experience and the industry’s ability to weather disruption. The firms that succeed will be those that stop treating resilience as a compliance exercise and start recognising it as a strategic pillar of competitiveness.
In an era where trust is currency, the resilience of systems is inseparable from the resilience of the business itself. For IT leaders, the task ahead is as much about communication as it is about technology. Those who learn to speak the language of the boardroom may well secure not just investment, but the long-term survival of their institutions.