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@article{195806,
        author = {Chukwu Nelson Okwudili and Chukwudi Jeremiah Paul and Ifesinachi Ignatius Nwankwo and Chinoso Job and Onwe, Festus Chijioke},
        title = {LEGAL AND REGULATORY COMPLIANCE IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT FOR FINANCIAL SYSTEMS},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {12},
        number = {11},
        pages = {1199-1204},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=195806},
        abstract = {In the age of rapid technological growth, the financial services firm has undergone experienced a profound change by the integration of artificial intelligence, block chain, big data analytics and cloud computing. While these innovations render greater efficiency, hyper personalized services, and real-time transactions, they also expose the financial software to new legal, ethical, and regulatory issues. This report critically investigates the intersection of software engineering, regulatory frameworks, and professional ethics within the domain of digital finance systems. It elaborates how modern software design must account for compliance with global standards such as the general Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS), Sarbaness Oxley Act (SOX), and Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2). It first gives contextual insights on the 2008 financial crisis which revealed the significant gaps in transparency and resilience, bidding the need for more robust legal and ethical foundations in digital finances with a critical analysis that identifies key challenges in identity theft, algorithmic bias, ethical failures and gaps in real time compliance. It laid emphasis on the pressing need for secure by-design development, explainable AI models, and traceable transactions logs. Moreover, it appraises the social and sustainability concerns linked with digital finance such financial exclusion, environmental impact from blockchain infrastructure, and erosion of public trust following data breaches. In other to address these concerns, the report outlined a various proposed solution and professional practices, and these include the implementation of a secure Software Development Lifecycle (SSDLC), the use of legal-as-code tools within CI/CD, adoption of ISO/IEC 27001 for information security governance, and the embedding of professional ethics from bodies like ACM, IEE and ISO.},
        keywords = {},
        month = {April},
        }