DORAShield — DORA Compliance Autopilot for Small EU Financial Firms

The Problem

Small financial firms (payment institutions, small investment firms, e-money issuers, insurance intermediaries) across the EU are being crushed by DORA's five compliance pillars:

Real pain from forums:

"We're a small EU fintech startup and the 'Register of Information' requirement alone created a list of 50+ external tech providers. No one knows how to maintain this operationally." — r/fintech (Reddit, 2026)

"Our single IT manager is now responsible for DORA, GDPR, NIS2, and keeping the actual systems running. Something is going to break." — r/cybersecurity (Reddit)

"As a micro PE firm with 8 employees, we're expected to implement the same framework categories as Deutsche Bank? The proportionality principle sounds nice but nobody explains what 'simplified' actually means for us." — Industry forum

Specific pain points:

1. Register of Information — Mandated detailed register of ALL ICT third-party providers with operational criticality, dependency mapping, contract details, incident history, and risk classification
2. Incident Reporting — Major ICT incidents must be reported to supervisory authorities within strict timelines (initial: 4h, intermediate: 72h, final: 1 month)
3. Third-Party Risk Management — Every vendor contract must be DORA-compliant, requiring due diligence, exit strategies, and concentration risk analysis
4. Resilience Testing — Annual basic testing required; advanced (TLPT) for systemically important entities
5. ICT Risk Management Framework — Documented policies, procedures, and governance structures

The European Supervisory Authorities are actively discouraging spreadsheet-based compliance, pushing firms toward automated solutions.