One Identity says unifying access reviews, segregation of duties and privileged access governance gives finance teams a clearer line from identity risk to audit evidence.
Identity governance helps financial institutions strengthen access oversight across complex environments.
One Identity has set out how identity governance and administration (IGA) applies to financial institutions, at a time when attackers increasingly reach sensitive systems through valid accounts rather than malware alone.
IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach 2026 report, published in July with the Ponemon Institute, put the average financial-services breach at $6.29 million.
That is 26% above the $4.99 million global average and the second-highest of any industry, behind only healthcare at $6.64 million.
The cost is only part of the problem. Sophos’s State of Identity Security 2026 survey of 5,000 IT and security leaders found that 71% had suffered an identity-related breach in the previous year.
For banks, insurers and payment firms, that makes the question of who can reach what a core security control, not an administrative chore.
One Identity’s position is that governing those entitlements in one place gives security and audit teams the same view of the same data.
Why Access Has Become the Main Exposure in Finance
Attackers rarely need to break in when they can log in. One Identity’s guide to the best Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) for finance describes IGA as the way institutions keep access rights in order and stay compliant with frameworks such as SOX and PCI DSS.
The security argument sits underneath the compliance one: an account with more access than its owner needs is a larger prize when it’s stolen.
Excessive access permissions remain a persistent security concern. Employees can accumulate privileges as they move between roles, while service accounts, API keys and automation credentials introduce additional identities that require oversight.
For financial institutions, this growing complexity makes it increasingly important to maintain accurate entitlement records, regularly review access rights and enforce least privilege across human and non-human identities.
Credentials remain a proven way in. Verizon’s 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report attributed 22% of initial access to credential abuse.
Its 2026 edition reportedly shows vulnerability exploitation moving ahead of stolen credentials, which is a reminder that governance reduces one route in rather than closing all of them.
A finance team still needs patching, detection and network controls. What identity governance adds is a way to limit how far a compromised account can travel.
What One Identity Says Finance Teams Need From IGA
According to One Identity, its Identity Manager product addresses finance requirements through several capabilities in one platform.
It lists segregation of duties controls alongside role-based and attribute-based access control, so that nobody can both create and approve a payment, and so that access follows job function rather than individual requests.
The company also points to attestation tools that let business owners, not just IT, confirm who should keep access to what.
It cites SAP-certified controls for the ERP systems that sit at the center of many finance operations, along with cloud, on-premises and hybrid deployment options.
One Identity’s Privileged Access Governance capabilities integrate with its Safeguard solution, connecting privileged access controls with broader identity governance processes.
Auditing and reporting capabilities also support compliance requirements including SOX, PCI DSS, GDPR and regional financial regulations.
For financial institutions, the value of unified identity governance lies in connecting access decisions with consistent security policies and compliance processes.
By bringing access reviews, entitlement management and governance controls together, One Identity aims to help organizations maintain visibility across complex IT environments while supporting more efficient oversight and audit preparation.
Joiner-Mover-Leaver, Access Reviews and Least Privilege in Practice
The mechanics behind the headline are well understood. Joiner-mover-leaver processes decide what access a person receives on day one, what changes when they switch teams and how fast everything is removed on departure.
In finance, the “mover” case is where problems pile up: an analyst who transfers from trading operations to risk keeps old permissions because nobody asked for them to be removed.
Periodic access reviews are meant to catch that drift. They fail when reviewers see raw entitlement names they can’t interpret, so they approve everything.
Least privilege fails the same way, quietly, through accumulated exceptions. Governing roles and attributes centrally, and tying reviews to business context, addresses both failure modes.
The risk also extends to forgotten service accounts. In a 2026 attack targeting more than 5,700 Microsoft 365 accounts, threat actors compromised seven unmanaged service accounts lacking MFA, highlighting how identities left active without proper oversight can expose organizations to credential-based attacks.
Visibility is the common weak point. Netwrix’s 2026 Data and Identity Security Report found that 74% of organizations lack a unified view of sensitive data and who can access it.
It also found a 43% breach rate where AI had significantly expanded the number of identities, against 11% where it hadn’t.
Those are vendor survey figures, but they match what practitioners describe: identities multiply faster than the processes meant to govern them.
Sophos’s 2026 survey added a cost to that gap, reporting an average of $147,178 in extra recovery expenses where non-human identity management was weak.
Case Evidence: Rabobank
One Identity’s published Rabobank case study shows how a large financial institution approached identity governance modernization.
Following a merger, the Dutch bank needed to bring together identity management processes that had relied on custom-built systems.
The challenge was to establish a more scalable approach to managing access while improving visibility and supporting compliance requirements.
Rabobank selected One Identity Manager as the foundation for unified identity governance. According to One Identity, the bank introduced business roles, automated workflows and self-service capabilities that allow employees to request access through predefined roles rather than managing individual permissions separately.
Approval processes are built into these workflows, helping the organization maintain control over how access is granted.
The decision also reflected the need to reduce reliance on custom development. One Identity’s earlier case study highlights capabilities such as recertification, segregation of duties and configurable workflows, which allowed Rabobank’s identity team to adapt existing functionality to its requirements instead of building each control from scratch.
The platform also supports timely provisioning and deprovisioning, helping organizations manage access throughout the employee lifecycle.
According to One Identity, the resulting approach has given Rabobank clearer visibility into access rights, stronger governance controls and more straightforward compliance reporting.
The case illustrates how centralized identity governance and standardized access processes can help financial institutions manage complex access requirements while supporting security and regulatory compliance.
Looking Ahead: Continuous Governance for Machine and AI Identities
The next test for finance security teams is scale. As organizations expand their use of automation, cloud services and AI-driven applications, the number of non-human identities requiring oversight continues to grow.
Annual certification campaigns alone are unlikely to provide sufficient visibility across these environments. Continuous governance, clear ownership and timely removal of unnecessary access are becoming increasingly important.
Speed matters as much as scope. According to 2026 data breach research, organizations take an average of 247 days to identify and contain a breach.
A compromised credential that goes undetected for months can expose sensitive systems and allow attackers to move laterally.
For financial institutions, enforcing least privilege, continuously reviewing entitlements and promptly removing unused access can help limit damage even when detection is slow.
For finance teams weighing options, the useful questions are specific. Can the platform show who has access to critical systems today? Can it flag toxic combinations before they’re granted? Can it produce clear audit evidence without extensive manual effort?
One Identity’s approach brings these requirements together through centralized access governance, configurable compliance rules, automated workflows and access certification.
By connecting entitlement management with risk assessment and audit reporting, Identity Manager helps financial institutions strengthen oversight, simplify compliance processes and maintain greater control over access as their identity environments grow more complex.
About One Identity
One Identity provides identity security software covering identity governance and administration, access management and privileged access management. Its portfolio includes Identity Manager, Identity Manager On Demand, Active Roles and Safeguard.
