When a bank is implementing a solution or a technology, they do not just look at what benefits it will deliver right now – they also plan for how it fits in with the future plans of the bank. Strategized implementations are smarter investments and can thus yield a better return in the long run.

A strategic implementation requires the bank to first consider its expansion plans and then codify the needs of the organization for those plans. From our latest case study, here is what a $3.5B bank recognized as their needs from the risk management solution for their long-term growth plans. These needs demonstrate the tools and features that mid-sized banks will need over the coming years.

Mid-sized banks require technology implementations that can quickly begin delivering value to the organization. Share on X

Real-Time Insights and A.I.

The bank wanted its teams to have better insights into the real-time metrics and data. Banks are typically limited in what can be achieved with off-the-shelf, general-purpose software applications. Manually maintained spreadsheets and reports require significant effort to update and maintain. Often, by the time the board gets its final reports, the information contained within is already outdated.

We have observed the speed of commerce grow exponentially over the past few decades. From physical locations to catalogs to phone orders and then finally the internet. This trend shows no signs of changing; customers now want their transactions to be smoother and faster. Managers want instant information about problems and incidents.

It is thus crucial that the risk management solution uses analytics, A.I., and streamlined workflows to make it easier to uncover actionable insights. Bankers do not want to wait for data – they want a real-time view in an easy-to-understand dashboard.

Remote Workforce Collaboration

This probably would not have been a major requirement for any bank six months ago. Everyone understands what has happened over the past few months means that businesses across all industries need to have remote collaboration options ready. A lot of organizations had to quickly create policies and create an infrastructure that enable their employees to work safely from home. Now, every bank in the country wants to make sure it can ensure business continuity by enabling remote workforce collaboration.

This has also shifted the focus towards cloud risk management solutions. An on-site solution can be inaccessible during a shutdown, but a cloud solution is accessible to employees everywhere.

Predictive Analytics and Business Intelligence

Knowing what is happening right now in real-time is only a part of the visibility that bankers will need to be competitive in the future. The risk teams do not want to react to problems – they want to be able to proactively predict and mitigate risks. Risk management solutions centralize the storage of all the risk data of an organization. By noting historical trends and by comparing internal metrics to market data, predictive analytics enables these solutions to deliver business intelligence.

In other words, banks get predictions and insights not just about the current quarter but about the next quarter too. This insight will allow bankers to predict not just problems but opportunities as well.

Faster Time-to-Value

Mid-sized banks require technology implementations that can quickly begin delivering value to the organization. Mid-sized banks do not have redundant staff or locations – they require a solution that can be implemented with the minimum possible disruptions in banking processes. That is why it is important to choose a solution that can be implemented in a few days or weeks instead of going for a prolonged implementation that takes months to complete and years to generate ROI.

An Accountability Layer

The risk management strategy built by the CRO can only succeed if it is implemented currently. The changes brought about by the new strategy will be reflected in the risks, controls, assessments, policies, procedures, business processes, and regulatory requirements of the bank. This means that the CRO needs a layer of accountability which allows the risk team to break down the strategy into its individual parts and make it function in the right order.

Modern risk management solutions combine incident monitoring with activity management and risk metrics to create this layer of accountability. When an issue is detected, it can be assigned to a team or an employee, and the progress on the task can then be viewed in real time. This creates an intelligent map of tasks and incidents across the organization and creates an electronic trail of all the actions being taken.

IT & InfoSec Ready

There are many great collaboration solutions and analytics solutions available – the problem is that most of them haven’t been made for the financial industry. They do not comply with the regulatory requirements and the security needs of the banking sector. That is why mid-sized banks need solutions that have been designed for the IT infrastructure and the infosec requirements of banks.

Read more in our case study

This topic and more is explored in depth in our latest case study The Journey from Legacy ERM to Real-Time Risk Analytics. Download the case study to see why the bank chose the solution it did and how the CRO managed to find a solution that fulfilled all their future forward needs.