GRC and Third-Party Risk Management for Financial Institutions
Banks use GRC software for continuous compliance when it tests each control against live evidence and maps it once to every rule the bank reports against. DigitalXForce maps each control once to the frameworks financial institutions report against, including GLBA, PCI DSS, the NYDFS Cybersecurity Regulation (23 NYCRR 500), DORA, the Cyber Risk Institute profile and the SAMA Cybersecurity Framework, and tests each control continuously against live evidence from the tools you connect.
Testing each control continuously against live evidence is Continuous Control Assurance (CCA), which uses evidence, monitoring and validation to determine whether controls continue to operate as expected.
You can read more about vendor evidence verification, SOC 2 and ISO 27001 evidence collection, how to choose third-party risk management software and the 4-week proof of value.
Third-party risk is where examiners look first
Banks rely on vendors for core systems, payments and cloud, and DORA and the US interagency guidance on third-party relationships both expect ongoing oversight. DigitalXForce scores each vendor from questionnaire answers, evidence and external signals in its AI-Powered Third-Party Risk Management module, and External Risk View watches each vendor from the outside.
Operational resilience
X-BCOR ties business impact analysis, continuity plans and disaster recovery to live control coverage and is aligned with DORA.
How one tested control reports to every framework
DigitalXForce tests each control once in the AI-Powered Risk Management and Automated GRC module, with C-Assess for compliance, X-Assess for security and A-Assess for audit, and reports the result to every framework the control belongs to.
Who this page is for
This page is for the CISO, the head of third-party risk and the compliance team at a bank or other financial institution. DigitalXForce serves mid-size and large organizations. Its third-party risk management follows the four verbs of the US banking agencies’ Interagency Guidance on Third-Party Relationships of June 2023, which are identify, assess, monitor and control.
A critical vendor, from intake to offboarding
A business line requests a new vendor through a configurable intake form, and the platform classifies the vendor’s inherent risk automatically. A person in the third-party risk team confirms the classification and approves the tier, and the reasoning is recorded so it can be shown later. DigitalXForce uses three tiers: Tier 1 Critical, Tier 2 High and Tier 3 Commodity.
A core banking or payments provider placed in Tier 1 Critical gets External Risk View, AI review of its SOC 2 and ISO reports and connector evidence from its own systems, monitored continuously. Tier 2 vendors are refreshed weekly and Tier 3 vendors monthly, with triggered alerts in between. The connectors read configuration and compliance signals only, never business records or customer data.
A finding on a vendor goes to X-ROC, the XForce Risk Operations Center, which ranks it by quantified business impact, escalates it and tracks remediation to closure. If a vendor reports a breach, AI JedAI maps it to the services and data that depend on that vendor. Recertification looks at what changed in the evidence since the last review, and offboarding tracks data return and access revocation through to a closure record.
Who does what
- The business line owns the vendor relationship and submits the intake request.
- The third-party risk team confirms the classification, approves the tier and works the findings that X-ROC escalates.
- An analyst reviews the conclusions of AI JedAI and the drafts of XForce GPT before anyone relies on them, and every conclusion links back to the evidence it used.
- XForce GPT writes the board-ready reports, and the CISO or the head of risk takes them to the board.
- Auditors use the DigitalXForce platform to review the evidence. DigitalXForce makes clients ready for their audits and does not perform internal audits itself.
A scorecard for choosing a TPRM platform at a bank
Put these eight questions to every vendor in a demo, DigitalXForce included. Each one asks the platform to show something rather than describe it.
| Question to ask | What a good answer shows | What DigitalXForce shows |
|---|---|---|
| Where does a critical vendor’s evidence come from? | The platform shows evidence read from the vendor’s own systems and the date it was read. | Tier 1 vendors are monitored continuously with connector evidence from their own systems, and each input can be traced to the tool it came from, the control it belongs to and the date it was read. |
| Who decides a vendor’s tier? | The platform shows a recorded classification and the person who approved it. | The platform classifies inherent risk automatically, and a person confirms the classification and approves the tier, with the reasoning recorded. |
| How often is each vendor refreshed? | The platform shows a refresh interval for each tier and what triggers an alert in between. | Tier 1 is monitored continuously, Tier 2 is refreshed weekly and Tier 3 monthly, with triggered alerts in between. |
| What happens when a vendor reports a breach? | The platform shows the services and data that depend on that vendor. | AI JedAI maps the breach to the services and data that depend on that vendor. |
| Can the platform see fourth parties? | The platform shows the vendor’s own dependencies. | External Risk View maps fourth-party and nth-party dependencies, with no agent, no questionnaire and no cooperation from the vendor. |
| When does a finding close? | The platform shows a retest before the finding closes. | The control is tested again when the fix is marked done, and the finding closes only when the retest passes. |
| How does offboarding end? | The platform shows data return and access revocation on the record. | Offboarding tracks data return and access revocation through to a closure record. |
| Does one result report to every rule the bank answers to? | The platform shows one vendor control reported against each framework at once. | Each control is mapped once to every framework it belongs to, including GLBA, PCI DSS, 23 NYCRR 500, DORA, the Cyber Risk Institute profile and the SAMA Cybersecurity Framework. |
The GRC platform RFP guide turns these questions into written requirements, and the guide on how to choose third-party risk management software explains the four kinds of product that share the TPRM name. In the 4-week proof of value, the first assessments run in week 3 and are reviewed with your team in week 4.
Where we meet financial institutions
DigitalXForce took part in the Mid-Size Banking Coalition Association CISO Roundtable in Orlando in November 2024.
See DigitalXForce on the frameworks your institution reports against. Request a demo.
