Vendor Compliance Management Solutions

We offer a comprehensive set of vendor risk management and oversight solutions tailored to your specific circumstances, including:

  • Your organisational goals
  • The size of your business
  • Your available resources (human resources, technology, and budget)
  • Your governance structure
  • The complexity of vendor relationships
  • Applicable laws, regulations, and compliance obligations, including licensing requirements, AML/CTF regulations, data privacy laws, and industry-specific standards.
  • Your operational requirements, including:
    • Vendor onboarding
    • Ongoing vendor monitoring
    • Risk categorisation and scoring
    • Performance evaluation
    • Contract management and documentation tracking
    • Incident response planning

 

Our solutions cover:

  • Vendor Oversight Process Design: Including vendor risk assessments, establishing customised risk scoring mechanisms, vendor performance evaluation criteria, escalation pathways, and oversight mechanisms for different types of businesses (startups, company groups, high-risk corporates, etc.).
  • Vendor Oversight Policy Development: Creating comprehensive policies to manage vendor relationships effectively, covering onboarding, monitoring, and termination processes in compliance with applicable regulations and internal standards.
  • Vendor Oversight Process Enhancements: Reviewing and improving existing processes to address inefficiencies, evolving regulatory requirements, and changes in vendor risk profiles.
  • Training: Delivering tailored training programs for staff to manage vendor relationships, execute oversight processes, and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements.
  • Technology Integration for Vendor Oversight: Assisting with the selection, integration, and testing of technology solutions for vendor tracking, performance evaluation, risk monitoring, and reporting.
  • Vendor Oversight Process Implementation: Leading and coordinating the implementation of vendor oversight processes, managing milestones, facilitating cross-departmental collaboration, and aligning deliverables with compliance and operational objectives.

 

Our focus areas include:

  • Ongoing monitoring protocols
  • Incident management and escalation pathways
  • Supplier tracking reports
  • Clear vendor analytics and dashboards
  • Periodic performance evaluations
  • Vendor-related control testing methodologies
  • Oversight aligned with licensing conditions
  • Audit-ready vendor documentation practices
  • Regulatory reporting for outsourced providers
  • Vendor fraud risk monitoring
  • Vendor due diligence
  • Vendor risk categorisation and scoring
  • Initial provider screening
  • Supplier onboarding assessment
  • Provider qualification checks
  • Supplier risk profiling
  • Provider vetting processes
  • Vendor reassessment triggers
  • Vendor Compliance Audits
  • Third-party risk governance
  • Vendor risk assessment
  • Ongoing provider oversight
  • Real-time vendor tracking
  • External partner onboarding
  • Vendor offboarding management

 

Services Coverage

We offer outsourced providers’ management and oversight solutions to various financial institutions, financial service providers, and reporting entities subject to anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regulation, including but not limited to:

  • Investment bankers
  • Investment firms
  • Fund managers
  • Brokers, including forex brokers
  • Fintech companies
  • Non-bank deposit takers
  • Non-bank lenders
  • Online casinos and gambling platforms
  • Currency exchange providers
  • E-money issuers
  • Money remitters and money transmitters
  • Payment gateway providers
  • Derivatives issuers and platforms
  • Neo-banks
  • P2P lending platforms
  • Crowdfunding services and platforms
  • Financial advisers
  • Investment advisers
  • Financial planning specialists
  • Wealth managers
  • Custodial or depository service providers
  • Licensed trustees
  • Consumer credit providers
  • Building societies
  • Savings and loan associations
  • Credit unions
  • Corporate finance providers
  • Finance Companies
  • Designated non-financial businesses and professions (DNFBPs), including trust and company formation providers (TCSPs)

 

 

Jurisdictional Coverage

We deliver vendor risk management and oversight solutions across the following jurisdictions, including but not limited to:

  • Australia
  • United Kingdom
  • United States
  • Singapore
  • European Union
  • New Zealand
  • Prominent formation centres, including:
  • Belize
  • British Virgin Islands
  • Cayman Islands
  • Dubai
  • Bermuda
  • Panama
  • Jersey
  • Malta
  • Mauritius
  • Seychelles
  • Vanuatu

 

Outsourcing Policy Design

We offer well-designed outsourcing policies tailored to your compliance and risk management obligations and operational structure. Our areas of focus include, but are not limited to:

  • Defined roles and responsibilities
  • Documented compliance thresholds
  • Approval criteria for outsourced activities
  • Vendor risk tolerance parameters
  • Standardised guidelines for third-party engagement

 

Outsourcing Procedures and Protocols

When it comes to assisting businesses in the implementation of their outsourced policy, our focus areas include, but are not limited to:

  • Creating a set of effective procedures and protocols that cover:
    • Vendor onboarding steps for different vendor types
    • Standardised due diligence checklists
    • Compliance testing methodologies for vendor risk management controls
    • Periodic vendor evaluations
    • Vendor risk rating procedures
    • Reporting and recordkeeping formats
    • Incident management protocols
    • Establishing criteria for periodic vendor reassessments
    • Vendor offboarding steps for different vendor types
  • Helping you integrate necessary technology for customised vendor relationship tracking, notification systems, reporting, and fraud prevention.
  • Leading internal controls testing for vendor management-related controls.
  • Linking your vendor management framework to your UAV management systems and delegation register to ensure proper accountability, decision-making, and task ownership across the organisation
  • Supporting teams across various departments in understanding and executing vendor management-related responsibilities
  • Supporting the adaptation of your outsourcing policy to real-life risk environments
  • Aligning internal reporting on vendor and outsourced provider management with overall regulatory obligations of the business. Also, assisting with regulatory submissions related to outsourced providers
  • Creating mechanisms to identify and address potential conflicts of interest with vendors
  • Helping businesses define KPIs and SLAs to track vendor performance against agreed benchmarks
  • Preparing structured plans for transitioning from vendors, especially critical vendors, without disrupting operations

 

Outsourcing Policy Review

We offer thorough outsourcing policy reviews to assess its effectiveness and fitness for purpose. Our focus areas include identifying:

  • Any gaps
  • Points of improvement
  • Required adjustments related to changes in your resources and operations
  • Required adjustments related to the introduction of new products, expansion to new jurisdictions, and more

 

We offer this service either as:

 

Vendor Risk Management Enhancement

We offer vendor risk management enhancements to increase its overall effectiveness, reflecting on:

  • New compliance requirements and compliance policy updates
  • Business growth and expansion
  • Changes in risk ratings, risk appetite, identified new risks, changes in risk profiles
  • Auditors' and regulators' findings, including identified deficiencies and breaches
  • Internally identified areas of improvement and gaps
  • Results of previous internal controls testing
  • Introduction of new products
  • Process optimisation for efficiency
  • Regulatory tool upgrades
  • Monitoring process upgrades
  • Other triggering events

 

Vendor Oversight Implementation

We assist businesses with vendor oversight structure rollout by:

  • Collaborating with risk and compliance teams to align implementation with organisational goals
  • Supporting teams across various departments in understanding and executing outsourced provider-related responsibilities
  • Engaging with management to report on the implementation progress and address various challenges
  • Drafting necessary supporting documentation, including manuals, guidelines, procedures, and protocols
  • Developing internal controls throughout the business
  • Developing control testing methodologies aligned with your risk rating
  • Leading internal control testing for vendor onboarding, management and offboarding
  • Implementing effective reporting processes for the risk function and management

 

Vendor Risk Management and Reg-tech

Our focus areas for this service include:

  • Needs Assessment: Identifying specific vendor risk management requirements based on your industry, products, and regulatory obligations
  • Technology Selection: Tailored to your budget, size, operations, and compliance obligations
  • Testing: Assisting with testing to validate functionality, usability, and integration with operational, risk management, and compliance structures
  • Internal Documentation Alignment: Streamlining internal documentation, including policies, procedures, workflows, and process maps, to accommodate the technology selection
  • Vendor Onboarding Support: Streamlining onboarding processes with automated due diligence, risk categorisation, and documentation management
  • Risk Monitoring Technology: Implementing tools for ongoing vendor risk monitoring, including automated alerts for risk indicators and compliance lapses
  • Task Tracking and Reporting Systems: Establishing real-time tracking for vendor assessments and real-time alerts and dashboards
  • Fraud Risk Integration: Including fraud detection protocols within vendor risk monitoring
  • Customised Vendor Risk Dashboards: Developing dashboards for visualising vendor risk ratings, status updates, and compliance reports
  • Compliance Framework Integration: Aligning vendor risk management processes with your overall risk management and compliance monitoring framework
  • Control Testing: Incorporating vendor-specific control testing results into your compliance monitoring and reporting systems
  • Incident Response Protocols: Developing procedures for managing vendor-related incidents, such as breaches or non-compliance
  • Periodic Vendor Reassessment: Establishing frameworks for regular vendor risk reviews and updates

 

Vendor Risk Management Solutions for Small Business

It is always tempting to outsource and get the business going from the start/Getting vendor risk management from the get-go is paramount from both regulatory and product perspectives, whether your business is subject to:

  • AML/CFT laws where there are expectations for the outsourcing of AML/CFT compliance functions in most major jurisdictions. (Here is an AUSTRAC example)
  • Financial licensing regimes where outsourced providers’ management is a requirement of most licensing regimes (Here are the United Kingdom (FCA) and United States OCC examples)
  • Data management laws and information security standards accepted by the industry
  • All of the above.

 

Our vendor risk management solution for small businesses and startups focuses on:

  • simplified compliance controls tailored to your budget, size, and resources
  • cost-effective vendor vetting
  • basic regulatory mapping
  • user-friendly compliance tools and technology selection and implementation
  • streamlined reporting procedures
  • foundational outsourced provider onboarding, review, and offboarding training

 

We help small businesses and startups maintain regulatory compliance for vendor monitoring requirements, allowing adjustment for future growth without this area of compliance becoming an obstacle to business growth.

 

Vendor Risk Management Solutions for Company Groups

Managing vendor compliance across multiple jurisdictions can be a complex challenge. This is about allocating your resources efficiently, focusing on where things matter, and balancing attention to detail with overall efficiency. For company groups with multiple subsidiaries, we offer vendor risk management solutions focused on:

  • Centralised oversight models
  • Standardised compliance metrics across entities
  • Unified vendor risk allocation criteria
  • Cross-jurisdictional compliance mapping
  • Consolidated reporting and analytics
  • Integrated control frameworks
  • Consistent policy enforcement

Our years of experience with multi-jurisdictional financial institutions allow us to tailor your outsourced provider monitoring to manage the compliance side of your vendor management effectively.

 

Vendor Risk Management Solutions for High-Risk Corporates

With years of experience helping high-risk corporations oversee outsourced providers and vendors, our solutions go into the necessary depth to help entities handle their vendor risk management successfully. Our focus includes, but is not limited to:

  • Vendor Risk Profiling
  • Enhanced Vendor Due Diligence
  • Third-Party Control Testing
  • Fourth-Party Risk Management
  • Ongoing Critical Vendor Monitoring
  • Concentration Risk Management
  • Regulatory Compliance Assurance
  • Data Security and Confidentiality Oversight
  • Exit Strategy and Contingency Planning:
  • Cybersecurity Resilience and Incident Response
  • Vendor Performance Benchmarking
  • ESG Compliance Oversight
  • Operational Resilience Testing
  • Disaster Recovery and BCP
  • Vendor Relationship Governance
  • Real-Time Risk Reporting