Banking and Financial Services

The banking industry has historically been a heavily regulated industry. But the number, complexity, and breadth of recent regulations such as Basel II, Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), RegNMS, Gramm Leach Bliley Act (GLBA), PATRIOT Act, FFIEC Guidance and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) pose new challenges. While these regulations have significantly increased the cost of compliance for banks, non-compliance with any of these regulations can lead to stiff penalties and damage to the firm’s reputation, valuation, and personal liability. In addition, many of these regulations are holistic - they require organizations to manage risk across the entire enterprise, which significantly changes the way the industry has looked at risk management.

As a result of the growing regulatory environment and a greater focus on enterprise risk management, leading financial institutions are defining governance, risk and compliance (GRC) processes to provide broad oversight and management of risk and compliance activities.