360factors CEO Carl L. McCauley and Robert Berger (Vice President of Sales) were invited to the ABA podcast at the American Bankers Association Risk and Compliance Conference 2019 (ABA RCC 2019)
They talked about how businesses can go from reactive compliance to proactive compliance, the many benefits of risk and compliance automation, and the business value of risk and compliance technology. Sam Lisker, Senior Vice President, Business Intelligence and Innovation at ABA hosted the podcast.
Carl talked about how risk and compliance technology can truly add value to an organization. He also talked about the risk and compliance solutions aimed at mid-sized banks. Robert talked about the organization-wide effects of automation technology and how it can improve productivity and talent retention.
Here are a few excerpts:
Sam Lisker: So, we keep hearing this concept of proactive compliance management. What are the biggest challenges you see preventing compliance teams from achieving it?
Carl: The risk and compliance teams get caught up in the work – the activities they are performing on a day to day basis. It is important to take a step back and look at what’s going on and identify the systemic issues, so you can really make a difference. Instead of just doing compliance for the sake of doing compliance, how do you actually add value to the organization, make better business decisions, and avoid issues that could cause problems down the road more effectively? It is important to take a step back and look at what's going on and identify the systemic compliance issues Click To Tweet Robert: One of the first steps to that is really understanding how well your current system is performing. When you’re managing (compliance) with a lot of different tools and a lot of different technologies, combining all that information together in one place to be able to find insights can be difficult. What we’re trying to do is empower banks to understand how well they are performing so (they) know how to take that next step in the program
When you're managing (compliance) with a lot of different tools and a lot of different technologies, combining all that information together in one place to be able to find insights can be difficult. Click To TweetSam Lisker: That’s great. So, we keep hearing this concept of proactive compliance management. What are the biggest challenges you see preventing compliance teams from achieving it?
Carl: If you’re slow to react, you’re going to have a problem. (Such as) reputational damage, you’re going to introduce new products to market slower and lose opportunities. You’re not going to hit your risk appetite. So how can you use day to day actions to really make a difference.
Sam Lisker: That’s great. So tell us, what are the impacts of reactive compliance management?
Robert: We’ve heard so many compliance officers today talking about feeling frustrated, feeling overwhelmed, and how that affects their performance on a day to day basis. It can affect retention within your organization – being able to stay ahead of things instead of always feeling behind has to have some dramatic business effects. That trickles down to the front lines and how well they perform their duties as well.
Sam Lisker: So tell us, what type of insights and business results could the compliance team really bring to leadership in their organizations.
Carl: We hear a lot of times that compliance and risk (departments) go to the board and to try to provide data on what’s going on. That data is often months or even a quarter too late to process. What difference can be made if you can give value to the business early in the process? Could you release new products quicker, could you avoid reputational damage, could you see something happening if you had the indicator to indicate this issue? If you look outside the bank, there’s a lot going on in the marketplace. What are regulators looking at, what’s happening, well if you’re not keeping track of that, you’re reacting, you’re not being proactive.
Sam Lisker: Okay, and approximate time to implement?
Carl: We always try and implement within two to three months. Today we hear a lot of customers talk about maybe six, nine months, or a year. We want it to be less than three months, and ideally less than a month, even less than a week at some point the future.
Sam Lisker: Is there anything else you’d like our listeners to know about 360factors
Carl: You hear a lot about the big banks, they’ve got the key metrics, they got these terms, you go to these sessions they’re talking about key risk indicators and what’s out there. A lot of (smaller) banks sit back and say we can’t do that; we don’t have the resources or the time or technology to implement this. We like to say there’s technology out there for the smaller banks and that’s what they have to realize, it is there, it is available, it is coming today.