Zero Trust Identity and Access Management Aligned with IT Service Management for Financial Institutions

The alignment of cybersecurity resilience and efficiency has already emerged as a priority agenda among financial entities, which are experiencing dynamic threats in the digital world as well as demanding compliance requirements. This paper provides a broad framework that will combine Zero Trust Identity and Access Management (IAM) with Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) to come up with an integrated, governance-based vision of digital protection and service resilience. The model reinvents identity as the new security perimeter by implementing the Zero Trust principle of never trust, always verify, so that there is ongoing authentication, contextual authorization, and least-privilege enforcement of hybrid infrastructures. These controls are implemented by the IAM, which acts as the operational engine, and ITSM, which offers the process discipline of change management, incident handling, and compliance traceability. By use of conceptual analysis, process mapping, and practical alignment tables, the article illustrates how this convergence facilitates auditable identity work flows, automated service fulfillment, and the cyclical service improvement that is specific to financial regulatory frameworks. Critical implementation lessons, issues, and quantifiable performance metrics are established, and finally, a progressive roadmap to enable strategic adoption is provided. This alignment has not only resulted in the mitigation of cyber risk and insider threats, but it has also brought about operational agility, regulatory preparedness, and customer trust. The paper concludes that the implementation of Zero Trust IAM into the processes of ITSM would change the access control methodology as an individual element of security into an enterprise-wide management framework that is needed in the changing digital-finance landscape.