Christopher Monk, Managing Director
Business Performance Improvement

and

Tyrone Canaday, Managing Director
Technology Consulting

As financial institutions develop innovative technology, in-house or by partnering with fintech companies, they need to carefully consider regulatory requirements for both third-party risk management and information security. Protiviti hosted a Fintech Innovation webinar on April 5, which addressed the need for banks and other financial institutions to balance sound third-party risk management with the desire for ensuring speed-to-market for new products and services in a bid to remain competitive in today’s marketplace. The attendees primarily consisted of traditional financial services companies (81 percent) – mainly banking organizations and some insurers. Fintech companies represented seven percent of the audience.

We want to highlight some of the results of the polling questions submitted during the webinar because they give insight into the current state of fintech innovation and the areas banking firms are most concerned about as they work to achieve a balance between innovation and sound risk management.

The collaboration is not without challenges. Of those saying they are facing challenges with their third-party risk management programs (a large majority), one-third consider coordinating activities and workflow between different groups in the organization responsible for managing parts of third-party risk, such as the business (the first line of defense), the vendor management office, procurement and the compliance and information security functions, to be the most difficult. Seventeen percent of respondents highlighted the difficulty in gaining coverage of all of the organization’s third parties across all of the lines of business in the enterprise. Other issues include understanding and keeping up to date with all of the evolving regulations, and managing the workload by enhancing the efficiency and scalability of the third-party risk management process.

Most significantly, almost half (44 percent) of all respondents indicated that their organization does not track the risks associated with fintech companies and other vendors effectively.

Addressing the challenges

For institutions that are just beginning their innovation journey, a good starting point is to ensure they understand what their current capabilities are, including those for actively managing third-party risks as well as data security and privacy risks. From there, firms can then begin to consider pushing forward with developing innovative products using a structured research and development (R&D) lifecycle. By layering the two efforts together, firms can ensure third-party considerations are addressed throughout the process, and the level of risk management rigor and scrutiny is increased as they progress through the R&D gates.

During our webinar, Protiviti experts guided attendees through the many ways in which fintech companies are disrupting the marketplace and offered a new third-party risk management framework that can help manage the risks inherent with partnering with smaller, startup firms and launching new technology products and services. You can access the free recorded version here, and we recommend a full listen.

For even more detail on how traditional financial institutions can balance the need for speed-to-market for new products with the need for information security and risk management compliance as best practices, refer to our newly published white paper: Enabling Speed of Innovation Through Effective Third-Party Risk Management.

Paul Kooney of Protiviti’s Security and Privacy practice contributed to this content.