In this episode of the Connector Podcast, host Koen Vanderhoydonk interviews Marissa from Performative and DoraEdge. Marissa explains Performative’s core wealth‑management SaaS platform for independent wealth managers across Europe, highlighting its cloud‑native architecture, data integrations (custodian, market, sustainability), metrics engine, and client‑facing visualisations. She then introduces DoraEdge, a new regulatory‑compliance solution designed to help financial entities meet the EU Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) when it becomes mandatory in January 2025. DoraEdge provides a proprietary control library, AI‑assisted incident categorisation and reporting, and regulator‑ready templates that automatically populate from entered data. The conversation covers DORA’s proportionality principle, micro‑enterprise thresholds, and the universal obligations for all regulated firms, emphasizing the need for third‑party ICT provider oversight and supply‑chain mapping. Marissa offers practical advice for independent financial advisors on preparing before the January deadline, including reviewing contracts, service‑level agreements, and vendor risk. The go‑to‑market plan for DoraEdge includes a November 1 launch, a wait‑list on doraedge.com, free access for existing Performative customers, and trial periods (7‑14 days) before annual subscription. The discussion also outlines Performative’s current European footprint (Nordics, DACH, Benelux) and its modular approach to serving both wealth‑management firms and larger institutions. Contact details (doraedge.com and connect@doraedge.com) are provided for fast‑track inquiries.
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Welcome to the Connector Podcast, an ongoing conversation connecting fintechs, banks, and regulators worldwide. Join CEO and founder Koen Vanderhoydonk as you learn more about the latest available trends and solutions in the markets.
Welcome to another podcast of the Connector, and today I've got Marissa with me. from Copenhagen, from Performative, but also from DoraEdge. Marissa, can you please explain and tell us who you are?
Yes, absolutely. Thanks for having me, Koen. I'm Marissa. I work on the commercial team at Performative, as you said, here based in Copenhagen. We are traditionally known in the market for being a wealth management software solution provider. We have a core offering that we offer to independent wealth managers across Europe. as well as bespoke solutions that we develop for larger financial institutions. At the end of the day, our solution enables wealth management businesses to operate more efficiently and streamline their total operations from back to front.
Amazing. But you're also launching a regulatory compliance product, DoraEdge. That's a little bit different than what you just explained about WealthTech. So what's the deal? Sure.
We actually think building a tool, DORA Edge, to help entities across the financial sector comply with the Digital Operational Resilience Act is really well suited within our, our broader tech suite. So we're building DORA Edge to help independent wealth managers, but also regulated entities across the financial sector with becoming compliant with DORA. This is a tool not only to help them prepare for the upcoming regulation that goes into effect this coming January 2025.
All right.
But also maintain a higher level of digital operational resilience and overall enhance and improve their, their risk posture and their governance in terms of managing their entire compliance program. So we built this platform to really enable not just the, the narrow part of the market, which are the independent wealth managers, but a wider array of companies with leading technology to help them achieve this goal.
Well, interesting. And I can believe that many of the smaller financial institutions, which you mentioned, the independent financial advisors, they are also confronted with a large thing to do with DORA. But what exactly does DORA Edge do then?
DORA Edge offers a dedicated framework for DORA compliance with our own proprietary control library to make sure any financial entity knows which contracts are in place, which which policies that they have in the way that DORA stipulates. Beyond all of the data entry, we also have a really robust incident management and reporting function where we're leveraging AI to help categorize incidents that come in, writing descriptions for them, and helping to track in terms of the notification period for developing reports that need to be sent out to the competent authorities, that entire operation.
Mm-hmm.
Beyond that though, within DORA, there's a huge element regarding standardizing the reporting. So not just continuous monitoring, but also annual reporting requirements. And how we've built DoraEdge is that every single field that is an input for an entity from a data perspective directly contributes to the template that the regulators need to see.
And I believe that's a very complex template, isn't it?
It is. And we try to make it as easy as possible for entities, especially those with pretty small operation teams, to be able to manage their risk and compliance ops. To be able to hopefully not spend too much time, but rather can spend their time really thinking about centralizing that data, making it apparent to the entire organization, and ensuring that they're able to report in a really efficient way.
Well, these are all obligations that come in DORA, but does the same apply for, quote unquote, a smaller independent financial advisor?
Absolutely. So DORA impacts all regulated financial entities, and so independent wealth managers and other financial entities will be, of course, impacted by DORA.
Mm-hmm.
There is a couple of terms thrown around. One, the proportionality principle, as well as micro-enterprises. So there are a couple criteria that will categorize certain entities as micro-enterprises, one being in regards to their FTE, as well as their annual turnover balance sheet assets. So that's under 10 FT as well as €2 million. So, but from that, of course, there is kind of an array of entities that can fit in sort of the small to medium up to the enterprise size. So there is, of course, variations in terms of the reporting requirements, but the overall implications of DORA is to harmonize the way in which entities across the financial sector think about their digital operational resilience, the suppliers that they choose for the services that they need to deliver critical functions as a part of their offerings, and really assess, are those providers up to snuff? You know, have we assessed our contingency plan if they were to go financially bankrupt, if they were to have an outage or a disruption to their service, which would have a material impact on your own operations? So although smaller financial entities might not have as rigorous of reporting requirements from an incident management standpoint through their entire register of information, their supply chain mapping. The entire framework is to say we have a standard and all entities of any scope, complexity, size, and type will have to still comply to a certain degree.
Marisa, may I ask you a very simple question? Because it's super complicated if you think about it.
Yeah.
What, what if you would summarize for an IFA, what would be like the key things that they need to take into account if they want to, if they still need to get started before January? What would that be?
What's unique about DORA is that it harmonizes the risk frameworks for all organizations within the financial sector, regardless of company type, the offerings that they provide. So wealth managers, even if they are quite small, are just as impacted if you will, as other alternative asset investment managers, crypto asset servicing companies, payment providers, insurance companies, and list goes on. For smaller firms, DORA might be the impetus finally needed for those organizations to comprehensively review and bring structure to their ICT risk management framework. They'll need to identify, manage, monitor risks in addition to enhancing their overall oversight to their third-party ICT providers. So they might have not thought too hard about which vendors they're using for outsourced services, and at this point with DORA right on the brink of the new year, they'll need to do a comprehensive review of their existing outsourced providers, the contracts and service level agreements they have in place, and make sure that they do achieve the compliance standards that are set out in DORA. That also goes to any new vendors that they're thinking of adding to their register. They'll need to also make sure that they get up to the same standard that DORA sets out for their existing So it's pretty much, yeah, it's pretty much a continuous thing, isn't it? Absolutely. So it's not just getting ready for January 17th, but it's making sure that you not only can maintain that level of compliance, but also use that as a general understanding of your overall risk posture and the need to identify what potential risks could come up so that you can resolve those in due time.
And how do How does somebody become a customer of DoraEdge? A very simple question.
A very simple one. We have a marketing website, doraedge.com. So any financial entity, whether you're a wealth manager or any other institution, is able to sign up to our waitlist. We are launching the product on November 1st and continuing to develop it with weekly functional releases to make sure that it is at full potential and really well suited to support entities of all sizes in one, getting ready for DORA in January, but also where they they're able to maintain their overall risk and compliance program as it pertains to DORA's reporting requirements from there on out.
Well, we talked about performative in the very beginning. How do the two actually relate to each other and how does it work for performative customers?
So performative customers will have access to DORA Edge for free. They can start to sort of test it out and get up to speed on the platform really quickly. For anyone else who isn't currently a performative customer can again go to our website, doraedge.com, begin their trial, 7 or 14 days, so they can start to invite their team and begin using the platform in its full use. From there, they'll sign up for an annual subscription and have a license to DORA Edge from there on out.
Interesting. I hope we're going to have a lot of subscriptions after this podcast. Now, coming back to Performative, because we didn't really deep dive into Performative, you mentioned once it's a portfolio management system, but could you also share a little bit of insights? What is Performative? What do you do? What is the ambition?
So Performative, we have a cloud-native, entirely SaaS platform for independent wealth managers to manage their entire wealth management operation. We pull in custodian data, we pull in market data, sustainability data, anything that a wealth manager needs to see to see their client's total wealth. So with that total portfolio view, we have a really sophisticated metrics engine that runs pretty intense calculations and actually is able to power really robust visualizations in both an advisor portal as well as a client-facing app for independent wealth managers who might have not found a solution that suits their needs. Maybe they were solely working offline in Excel or used a legacy system that was quite clunky, potentially way more expensive than what they needed it to be. We were able to build Performative to deliver on the mission of really supporting this segment that otherwise was overlooked in the market and having something that was agile that could grow with their business.
You are headquartered in Denmark, Copenhagen, but how does the journey look like? What is the market that you would like to be active in, and where are you active already today?
We're live in a handful of countries across Europe. We're always looking to expand on that where we have clients with a need, whether that is independent wealth management firms or other institution types like banks who we can support with our offering, either in using our core platform or developing bespoke solutions that can fit into their existing tech stack. We, of course, are based in the Nordics, so have a presence here, but we're also widely known within the DAC as well as the Benelux regions. With that, we know each jurisdiction has its own regulations, and we definitely do look to make sure the platform is able to be adopted and suitable to suit the requirements within those different markets. But overall, the, the way that we've built The Performative platform is quite modular in how it's powered. So we're able to work with every unique client that we onboard and to make it suit them in the way that they need it to.
Well, excellent. Marissa, thank you very much for joining me on this podcast. I have one last question for you, and it's a very practical one. Maybe coming back a little bit on DoraEdge, you said that they could apply for a trial period and get a customer on the website, but how can they contact you? If they want to really go fast track.
So I will get every single email if you do sign up on doraedge.com. But if you want to send me a personalized note, connect@doraedge.com.
Well, brilliant. Thank you very much again for joining us. Thank you also to the audience. And please stay tuned. More news from the fintech industry. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Koen.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
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