Today’s business climate dictates that organizations will need to continue to rely on third parties to remain competitive and alleviate internal processing burden. All of these relationships present some sort of risk to your organization that require managing and monitoring.

While third party risk management today is a sound business practice, it’s also a regulatory expectation. During your next regulatory exam, it’s a safe assumption that your examiner will expect to see guidance recommendations implemented within your program. It’s important that you can demonstrate to them that you are taking proactive steps to identify and mitigate potential areas of weakness.

You should be aware that you cannot outsource the risk a vendor poses to your organization but you can outsource tasks. This means partnering with professionals and experts who can analyze your vendor controls and assess their effectiveness in reducing risk.