Risk and Compliance Management Frameworks

Cloud solutions have been available for businesses for a few decades now, but their importance has become clear in the past few months. Banks and financial institutions that were managing risk and compliance without using cloud solutions have suddenly found themselves unprepared for our current working conditions.

Cloud solutions allow the whole organization to collaborate and manage tasks from any computer or mobile device with an internet connection. Banks and financial institutions that mostly work locally were able to work without these solutions because they assumed that their teams will always be working from offices. It is easy to collaborate when all the members of the team are sitting in an office. Coordination and monitoring can be done by simply walking over to the desk of other team members.

The pandemic has forced many businesses to enable work from home policies for employees for the first time and these businesses may struggle with efficiency and productivity now. While the advantages of cloud solutions in the context of the current pandemic are obvious, there are other advantages as well that will always be useful for banks and financial institutions.

Business Continuity

Business continuity has emerged as the most obvious advantage of cloud risk and compliance management solutions during the pandemic. Most businesses have used general-purpose cloud solutions to continue collaborating as employees work from home. Microsoft Teams, Asana, Zoom Meetings these are just some of the apps and tools being used to make sure that everyone can work together.

The problem is that these solutions are fine for simple tasks but cannot handle complicated and collaborative work like risk and compliance management. The risk management team and the compliance management team within a bank need to work with all departments to manage risks and ensure compliance. They need to ensure checklists are followed, processes are carried out as required, and reports are created on time.

Cloud risk and compliance management solutions make it easy to manage everything through the internet. They go beyond simply allowing people to talk to each other – they streamline the risk and compliance management process.

Risk and Compliance Tools

Risk and compliance managers need access to monitoring, management, and analysis tools. Having these tools installed in the office computers means that the tools will not be available to any employee working out of the office. Cloud risk and compliance management solutions do not require any software installation on the computer – they can be accessed directly from the browser. Thus, no matter how sophisticated the task that needs to be performed, the risk and compliance team will have their full arsenal of tools.

Document availability

Many businesses now keep their documents on Office 365, Google Drive, or other such solutions to ensure that they are always available when needed by employees. Banks and financial institutions cannot do the same as easily as their documents carry sensitive financial information and they must be kept in a secure location. Banks also need an audit trail of everyone who accesses and edits the documents for compliance reasons. Cloud risk and compliance management solutions are often paired with a document management system. These document management systems make all the documents available to employees while ensuring that all risk and compliance requirements are being followed.

Enhanced task management

Many teams struggle when working from home because of a lack of visibility into the work. In an office the manager can simply turn around to face a team member and ask them about progress on a specific task. When the employee is working from home they can only be contacted via instant messaging, email, or by calling them. This can create a micromanaging culture where the employees can feel like they are being monitored too much. Cloud risk and compliance management solutions have task management features which show everyone’s progress to the manager. Instead of needing to ask employees about work, the managers can view everything they need through the solution.

Easier collaboration

Cloud risk and compliance solutions allow employees to collaborate with ease. The manager can review the latest compliance or risk issues that have been detected by the cloud solution and assign team members to look at the issue. The team members all get a notification about the task. They can open the task and then have conversation about what work needs to be done. They can then divide the work and post it back into the system, where the manager can instantly see that the required steps have been taken. Everyone can collaborate without needing to pick up a phone or send out an email about issues.