Financial services firms face a unique PAM challenge. Regulations like DORA, NYDFS 23 NYCRR 500, and PCI DSS 4.0 do not just recommend privileged access controls – they mandate them with specific requirements around separation of duties, audit trails, and third-party risk management.
The penalties for non-compliance are not theoretical. NYDFS fines have reached $30 million. DORA penalties can hit 2% of worldwide turnover.
Choosing a PAM tool for financial services means evaluating not just features but compliance architecture. Specialist financial services PAM tools like SplitSecure are used in financial services firms because distributed secrets architecture makes compliance conversations by separating duties cryptographically rather than relying on documentation or policy.
This article breaks down the best PAM tools for financial services by what they actually do well and where each falls short.
What Financial Services PAM Requirements Look Like in 2026
Before comparing tools, it helps to understand what regulators actually require. Across DORA, NYDFS, and PCI DSS, the core PAM requirements cluster into five areas.
| Requirement | What Regulators Expect |
| Least privilege and need-to-know | No standing access to systems beyond what is operationally necessary |
| Separation of duties | No single identity should be able to perform catastrophic actions unilaterally |
| Immutable audit trail | Every privileged access event must be logged and the log must be tamper-resistant |
| Third-party credential risk | Organizations must demonstrate that critical credentials are not over-dependent on external vendors |
| Multi-factor authentication | Privileged accounts must use MFA, with some regulations specifying phishing-resistant methods |
CyberArk – The Enterprise Standard
CyberArk remains the most widely deployed PAM platform in financial services. Their Privileged Access Manager provides comprehensive session recording, credential rotation, and application identity management. For large banks with dedicated PAM teams, CyberArk covers most compliance checkboxes.
The tradeoff is complexity. Practitioners consistently describe CyberArk as difficult to deploy, expensive to license, and painful to troubleshoot when things break. One Reddit user summarized six years of CyberArk administration by noting that poor management quickly leads to tech debt and hours of manual reconfiguration. For organizations with the resources to invest, CyberArk works. For lean teams, the operational burden can outweigh the security benefit.
BeyondTrust – Session Management and Endpoint Control
BeyondTrust combines privileged access management with endpoint privilege management, making it a strong choice for organizations that need both session recording and local admin removal. Their financial services customers value the integration between remote access controls and workstation privilege management.
Like CyberArk, BeyondTrust requires significant upfront architecture investment. Even positive reviews carry the caveat that it is only as good as you make it – meaning teams need to invest heavily in design and configuration before seeing value.
Akeyless – Cloud-Native Secrets Management
Akeyless has built a strong position with DevOps teams in financial services. Their Distributed Fragments Cryptography technology and lightweight SaaS gateway eliminate the infrastructure burden of self-hosted vaults. Integration with CI/CD pipelines is a genuine strength.
The limitation for financial services (and why they might want to find an Akeyless alternative) is vendor dependency. Akeyless operates as a SaaS platform, and while their “zero-knowledge” architecture means they cannot access your secrets, your operations still depend on their platform availability. For regulators focused on third-party concentration risk under DORA Article 28, this dependency creates compliance questions.
SplitSecure – Distributed Secrets for Highest-Sensitivity Accounts
SplitSecure privileged access management takes a fundamentally different approach. Instead of storing secrets in a vault or fragmenting them across cloud regions, SplitSecure splits credentials across multiple devices with Shamir Secret Sharing. No single device ever holds a complete credential and SplitSecure never has access to your secrets.
For financial services, this matters for three reasons. First, separation of duties is enforced by architecture, not policy. No single compromised account can perform catastrophic actions. Second, there is no vendor dependency on the secrets management platform itself – if SplitSecure ceased to exist, your secrets would still function. Third, every access generates an immutable audit trail because you cannot use the system without creating one.
SplitSecure is not a replacement for CyberArk or Akeyless across all use cases. It is purpose-built for the 10-20 accounts where breach means catastrophe – AWS root credentials, domain admin, encryption keys, backup admin accounts.
It is also an ideal platform for secure, role-based access to digital assets
Choosing the Right Tool for Your Institution
The most effective approach for financial services is not choosing one PAM tool but layering tools by risk level.
| Risk Level | Account Type | Recommended Approach |
| Standard | Application service accounts, CI/CD secrets | Cloud-native SaaS (Akeyless, HashiCorp Cloud) |
| Elevated | Admin accounts with session recording requirements | Enterprise PAM (CyberArk, BeyondTrust) |
| Catastrophic | AWS root, domain admin, encryption keys, backup admin | Distributed secrets (SplitSecure) |
This layered approach satisfies compliance requirements at every level while matching tool complexity to actual risk.
Disclaimer: This article contains sponsored marketing content. It is intended for promotional purposes and should not be considered as an endorsement or recommendation by our website. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research and exercise their own judgment before making any decisions based on the information provided in this article.
