Exploring Digital resilience third-party registers

The Digital resilience third-party registers application empowers the financial entities to maintain registers of contractual arrangements with Information and Communication Technology (ICT) third-party service providers and comply with Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) regulation.

Applications for DORA compliance

Beginning with Release 19.1.x, the following applications are supported for ICT Third-party Risk Management as part of DORA compliance.

• Digital Operational Resilience Management: This application is used for uploading and downloading of all individual DORA tables.

• Digital Resilience Third-party Information Register: This application is used to download the Digital resilience third-party registers. The application contains the Microsoft Excel template that includes all tabs for reporting purposes. It helps the financial entities to maintain a comprehensive register of their contractual arrangements with ICT Third-party service providers at the individual entity, sub-consolidated, and consolidated levels.

  Customers use Digital resilience third-party registers to create or edit the records in bulk or individually for assessments, branches, contracts, functions, legal entities, supply chains, third parties, or third-party engagements using the Microsoft Excel upload and download feature.

  Note: The IRM Professional license users can access Digital resilience third-party registers in the Operational Resilience Workspace. The TPRM license users can access Digital resilience third-party registers in the TPRM Workspace.

  The Digital resilience third-party registers application fulfills multiple functions for the entities:

  • Assists the entities in tracking their ICT third-party risks.
  • Empowers the competent authorities in European Union to oversee ICT and third-party risk management within financial entities.
  • Aids European Supervisory Authorities (ESA) in identifying Critical ICT third-party service providers (CTPP) for EU level supervision.

Digital Operational Resilience

Digital Operational Resilience refers to the ability of a financial entity to build, assure, and review its operational integrity and reliability. It ensures that the entity has the full range of ICT related capabilities that are needed to secure its network and information systems. These systems support the continuous provision of financial services and maintain their quality, even during disruptions. The continuity can be achieved directly or indirectly with the services provided by the ICT third-party service providers.

Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA)

Digital Operational Resilience aligns with the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA). It is a European Union (EU) regulation that came into effect on 16 January 2023 and it will be applicable from January 17, 2025. It enhances the ICT security of financial entities supervised by the European Supervisory Authorities (ESA)s and protects Europe's financial sector from major digital disruptions.

Regulatory Technical Standards

DORA Regulation mandates that financial entities incorporate and periodically review a strategy for managing ICT third-party risk within their ICT risk management framework. This strategy must include a policy governing the use of ICT services that support critical or important functions, as provided by third-party ICT service providers.

A financial institution's policy on using third-party ICT service providers plays a crucial role in defining key aspects of its governance, risk management, and internal control frameworks for these services. Financial entities must perform risk assessments and due diligence before signing contracts with third-party ICT service providers. They must also ensure they can terminate these arrangements if needed and maintain business continuity for critical or important functions. For instance, an action could be necessary where the service is not optimal, external ICT systems malfunction, or the service is disrupted due to sanctions.

Pillars for DORA

Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) comprises the important pillars:

1. ICT Risk Management
2. ICT Incident Reporting
3. Digital Operational Resilience Testing
4. ICT Third-party Risk Management
5. Information and Intelligence Sharing

Note: Operational Resilience, Release 19.1.x focuses on the ICT Third-party Risk Management pillar only.

Processing the records using GUI or Microsoft Excel

Customers can manage the contractual arrangements by processing the records by using the graphical user interface (GUI) or by importing or exporting Microsoft Excel files in the Digital resilience third-party registers application.

For information on processing the records through the graphical user interface (GUI) or by importing or exporting Microsoft Excel files, see Using Digital resilience third-party registers.

Accessing the Digital resilience third-party registers application

Users can access the Digital resilience third-party registers application in the following ways:

• Beginning with Release 19.1.x, customers who already have the Operational Resilience or the TPRM applications can access the Digital resilience third-party registers.
• These customers can download, install, and start using the Digital resilience third-party registers application.

Per DORA regulatory requirements, financial entities must identify all relevant ICT third-party service providers in template B_05.01, including:

• All direct ICT third-party service providers
• All ICT intra-group service providers
• All subcontractors identified in template B_05.02 on the ICT service supply chain
• All ultimate parent undertakings of the ICT third-party service providers referred to in (a), (b), and (c)

Digital resilience third-party registers in Operational Resilience Workspace

Upon opening the Operational Resilience Workspace, the menu featuring Digital resilience third-party registers is displayed.

Digital resilience third-party registers in the TPRM Workspace

For information on Digital resilience third-party registers in the TPRM Workspace, see Third-party Risk Management.

• Use cases for updating the information registers
  Users with third-party registers and contractual details spread across various systems can automate the process of populating their information registers. This section outlines common scenarios for recording third-party data into Digital resilience third-party registers.
• Register of Information (ROI) regulatory packages
  The Register of Information (RoI) is a regulatory reporting requirement under the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and is supported by the Digital resilience third-party registers application in the Operational Resilience Workspace.
• Validation framework for Register of Information in Operational Resilience
  The validation framework helps to verify that RoI packages meet regulatory requirements defined by the DORA.

Parent Topic:Maintaining Digital resilience third-party registers