Cybersecurity Risk Management and Digital Trust in FinTech Organizations: A Critical Review of Threats, Frameworks, and Trust-Enabling Mechanisms

Abstract

The digitization of financial services has been transformed by FinTech which has introduced digital payments, platform lending, open banking and algorithmic advice. The same architectural characteristics that facilitate this speed and scale—API-centric design, cloud reliance and dependence on third parties—also expand the cyber attack surface. This review explores the relationship between cybersecurity risk management and digital trust in the context of FinTech organizations in a critical manner. It draws on peer reviewed studies, international standards, regulatory instruments and industry reports and combines (i) the structure of the FinTech attack surface and what is known about threats and losses, (ii) the main risk management frameworks and quantitative models, (iii) the consolidating regulatory landscape, and (iv) the behavioral and technical aspect of digital trust. The review then presents an integrated Risk – Trust Nexus framework that connects the governance, technical controls and assurance mechanisms to the customer, partner and regulatory trust beliefs of competence, integrity and benevolence. The synthesis shows that trust requires risk management maturity but is not the only factor in trust – transparency, demonstrated resilience and credible incident handling are also key to trust. There are still significant lack of elements in place, such as lack of loss data, insufficient measurement of third-party and concentration risk, empirical evidence on trust metrics is limited, and the governance of AI-powered security tooling. Finally, a research agenda for practitioners, regulators and scholars is outlined.