How Fintech Teams Pass Audits Without the Documentation Panic

In financial services, engineering metrics aren't just about velocity and productivity—they're about demonstrating compliance with regulatory requirements like SOC 2, PCI-DSS, and internal audit frameworks. This guide explains how to use GitHub analytics to maintain audit trails, enforce separation of duties, and report engineering controls to boards and auditors.

Whether you're preparing for your first SOC 2 audit or responding to regulatory inquiries about your software development lifecycle, having verifiable engineering metrics is no longer optional.

Regulatory Context: Why Fintech Needs Engineering Metrics

The Compliance Landscape

Financial services organizations operate under intense regulatory scrutiny. When auditors examine your technology controls, they're looking for evidence that your software development process includes appropriate safeguards:

• SOC 2: Requires documented change management processes, including code review and approval workflows
• PCI-DSS: Mandates separation of duties for changes to cardholder data environments
• FFIEC Guidelines: Expect risk-based controls for software changes, including peer review and testing
• ISO 27001: Requires controlled change management procedures with documented approvals

What Auditors Want to See

During compliance audits, expect questions like:

• "How do you ensure all code changes are reviewed before production?"
• "Can you prove that no developer deploys their own code without review?"
• "Show me the approval trail for this specific production change."
• "What percentage of changes bypass your review process?"
• "How do you detect when separation of duties is violated?"

Without engineering metrics and audit trails from your GitHub activity, answering these questions requires manual investigation of individual pull requests—a process that's both time-consuming and error-prone.

The Cost of Non-Compliance

Inadequate engineering controls can lead to:

• Failed audits: SOC 2 qualifications or PCI-DSS deficiencies that delay customer deals
• Regulatory fines: Particularly for publicly traded fintechs under SEC oversight
• Customer churn: Enterprise customers require clean audit reports
• Insurance issues: Cyber insurance may be denied or premiums increased
• Reputational damage: Public disclosure of control weaknesses

Separation of Duties: Tracking Review Compliance

The "Maker-Checker" Principle in Code

Separation of duties—the principle that no single person should control all aspects of a critical transaction—is fundamental to financial services. In engineering, this translates to: no developer should merge their own code to production without independent review and approval.

Key Metrics for Separation of Duties

CodePulse tracks two critical metrics that demonstrate separation of duties compliance:

1. Review Coverage

2. Merge Without Approval Rate

This metric catches:

• PRs reviewed but never formally approved
• Admin bypasses of branch protection
• Self-merged changes
• Hotfixes that skip approval workflow

Enforcing Separation of Duties with GitHub

Metrics show you violations, but prevention is better. Enforce separation of duties technically using GitHub branch protection:

Even with perfect GitHub settings, track metrics to detect when protection rules are bypassed by admins or when developers find workarounds.

Common Compliance Violations to Watch For

Audit Trails for Code Changes

What Constitutes an Adequate Audit Trail?

For compliance purposes, an audit trail for code changes must demonstrate the "who, what, when, and why" of every production change. Specifically, auditors expect:

• Who: Identity of the developer who made the change AND the reviewer(s) who approved it
• What: Description of the change and its scope (files modified, lines changed)
• When: Timestamps for PR creation, review, approval, and merge
• Why: Justification for the change (linked issues, tickets, or business requirements)
• Testing: Evidence that changes were tested (CI/CD status checks)

Complete PR History: The Foundation of Audit Trails

CodePulse stores complete pull request history including:

• PR creation timestamp and author
• All review timestamps and reviewer identities
• Approval events with explicit approval states
• Merge timestamp and merge author
• Status check results (CI/CD pass/fail)
• Changes in PR state (draft, ready for review, merged, closed)

This data provides an immutable record of your development process—critical when auditors ask "prove that this specific change was reviewed and approved."

Audit Trail Requirements by Framework

Responding to Audit Requests

When auditors request evidence of your change management controls, you need to produce:

1. Policy documentation: Written policies describing your code review and approval process
2. Configuration evidence: Screenshots or exports of GitHub branch protection settings
3. Population data: Metrics showing review coverage and approval rates across all changes in the audit period
4. Sample testing: Detailed audit trails for 15-25 randomly selected PRs showing proper review and approval
5. Exception analysis: List of any violations with root cause analysis and remediation

CodePulse streamlines this process by providing both aggregate metrics (population data) and the ability to drill down into individual PRs (sample testing). For more on audit requirements, see our Security & Compliance for GitHub Analytics guide.

Setting Up Compliance Alerts

Real-Time Compliance Monitoring

Don't wait for audits to discover control violations. Set up alerts to catch compliance issues immediately when they occur.

Recommended Alert Configuration for Fintech

Alert Response Procedures

Having alerts is only useful if you have clear response procedures. For fintech compliance alerts:

1. Immediate acknowledgment: Designated responder confirms alert within 15 minutes
2. Investigation: Identify the specific PR(s) that triggered the alert and determine root cause
3. Remediation: If it's a true violation, determine if code needs to be reverted or if post-facto review is acceptable
4. Documentation: Log the incident, root cause, and remediation in your incident tracking system
5. Prevention: Update processes or GitHub settings to prevent recurrence

For detailed alert setup, see our Alert Rules Guide.

Security Considerations for Regulated Industries

Data Security for Engineering Analytics

When evaluating CodePulse or any engineering analytics platform, fintech security teams should ask:

1. GitHub OAuth Scopes

CodePulse uses read-only scopes: read:org, read:user, and repo (read-only for metadata—does not modify code).

Crucially, CodePulse does NOT request admin:repo_hook or write permissions, meaning the platform cannot modify your code, change settings, or alter your repositories.

2. Code Content Access

CodePulse accesses metadata (PR titles, commit messages, review activity, timestamps) but does NOT read or store the actual source code files. This minimizes exposure of proprietary algorithms or security vulnerabilities.

3. Data Retention

Understand how long your engineering data is retained and what happens when you terminate the service. For compliance purposes, you may need to retain audit trails even after canceling.

4. Access Controls

Within CodePulse, implement role-based access control (RBAC) so that only authorized personnel can view engineering metrics and audit trails. Consider:

• Engineering leaders: Full access to all metrics
• Compliance officers: Read-only access to audit trail reports
• External auditors: Temporary read-only access with time-limited credentials

Vendor Risk Management

For regulated financial institutions, any third-party vendor (including CodePulse) should go through your vendor risk management process:

• Request SOC 2 Type II report (if required by your policy)
• Review data processing agreement (DPA) for GDPR compliance
• Confirm data residency meets your geographic requirements
• Verify incident response and breach notification procedures
• Assess vendor's cybersecurity insurance coverage

For a comprehensive vendor security checklist, see our Security & Compliance Guide.

Board Reporting for Fintech Engineering

What Boards Want to Know

For fintech companies, board members (especially those on audit or risk committees) care deeply about engineering controls. They want assurance that:

• Software development follows documented, auditable processes
• Separation of duties is enforced consistently
• Quality gates prevent defects from reaching production
• The company can demonstrate compliance during audits

Engineering Metrics for Board Presentations

When presenting to the board or audit committee, focus on metrics that demonstrate control effectiveness:

Framing Engineering Metrics as Risk Indicators

Board members think in terms of risk. Frame engineering metrics accordingly:

Quarterly Board Materials Checklist

For fintech companies preparing board materials on engineering controls:

• Trend charts: Show review coverage and merge without approval rate over last 4 quarters
• Comparison to targets: Highlight where metrics meet or exceed board-approved targets
• Exception analysis: Explain any control violations and remediation taken
• Audit readiness statement: Confirm team is prepared for upcoming audits
• Process improvements: Highlight any enhancements to engineering controls

CodePulse's export functionality makes it easy to generate board-ready reports and charts. For more on board reporting, see our Board-Ready Engineering Metrics Guide.

The Bottom Line

In fintech, engineering metrics are as much about compliance and risk management as they are about developer productivity. By tracking separation of duties metrics, maintaining complete audit trails, and setting up real-time compliance alerts, you demonstrate to auditors, regulators, and board members that your engineering organization operates with appropriate controls.

More importantly, these metrics help you prevent compliance violations before they occur— turning engineering analytics from a reporting tool into a proactive risk management system.