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Signature Bank of Arkansas   

Remediates Findings Faster with Nfindings

A few years ago, Signature Bank of Arkansas was preparing to reach a major milestone: $1 billion in assets. While the bank, established in 2005, had a lot to celebrate, it also had much to prepare for, including internal control testing for its first financial statement audit.  

Motivated by a commitment to align its business objectives with risk management priorities, the bank turned to Ncontracts for automated solutions to streamline the management of exam and audit findings. 

Company Size
$1.3 Billion in Assets
Location
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Primary Regulator
Federal Reserve
Website
https://www.signature.bank/

The Challenge

Lee Ann Wilson has been working toward her role as Director of Internal Audit at Signature Bank of Arkansas her entire career. With 15 years of banking experience, an accounting degree, and internal audit experience at banks and CPA firms, she was well prepared to step into the newly created role in 2022.  

On the brink of meeting the financial benchmark, Lee Ann and the executive team determined it was finally time to move from manual processes to audit management software. While they considered other audit management service providers, Ncontracts' purpose-built products and team with deep industry knowledge were ultimately the deciding factors in the team's choosing Nfindings.  

“What sold me on Ncontracts was that you were banking people that created software for bankers,” Lee Ann noted.  

“[Ncontracts] was created by bankers for bankers.”
Lee Ann Wilson, VP, Director of Internal Audit

The Solution

Today, Lee Ann relies on Nfindings for many tasks including: 

  • Tracking issues and ensuring they’re resolved. With a comprehensive and real-time view of compliance, exam, and audit findings, Lee Ann can quickly identify issues, track resolution efforts, gather supporting documentation, confirm fixes, and escalate when needed. “Everything goes through Nfindings — exams, internal audit, all the compliance reviews, all the IT reviews.”  
  • Documenting updates and tracking control testing. A centralized dashboard that documents processes makes it easier for Lee Ann and her team to respond to auditor requests and track control testing. For example, following a recent IT exam, the bank must separate two key roles — a change that takes time but is now tracked and managed effectively in Nfindings.  
  • Collaborating with team members. Nfindings has streamlined collaboration across the bank and provided better visibility into the status of findings. "You can actually see what's going on at any given time, and you can see if somebody hasn't done anything, and you can reach out and say, Hey, I need some updates here."  
  • Keeping findings top of mind across the organization. Findings can come from any department at any time. Signature Bank replaced manual tracking with Nfindings to capture every issue and “prevent findings from falling through the cracks.”  

The Results

Lee Ann and her team have seen the benefits of automated exam and audit findings management software since implementing Nfindings in 2024. 

Optimized workflow. With a single, organized audit management system, Lee Ann and her team no longer juggle spreadsheets and disconnected communication channels, resulting in improved efficiency and more transparent accountability across findings-related tasks.   

Quick Overview

Products: Nfindings, Nverify, Nrisk, and Nvendor

The Results:

  • Optimized workflow 
  • Clear documentation and reporting  
  • Improved audit preparation 
  • Enhanced team collaboration  
  • Community and peer learning 
  • Knowledge as a Service 

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Clear documentation and reporting. Having a single source of truth streamlines the internal auditing process. "Everything's in one place, so when my control testing auditors ask me for my Q1 tracking, it's all there." Lee Ann noted.  

Improved audit preparation. Rather than relying on sporadic updates from her team members, Lee Ann can confidently prepare for audit committee meetings as she can see the latest progress on remediation processes, including due dates and explanations for delays, within Nfindings.  

Enhanced team collaboration. The response has been positive since introducing the solution to colleagues and the audit committee. She has taken a hands-on approach to demonstrating the solution's features by meeting one-on-one with many of her team members. "I just went and sat with them and showed them how simple it was," Lee Ann recalled. "If an examiner asked me about something, I can show them what I've done [in Nfindings] to remediate it.” 

Community and peer learning. Lee Ann enjoys attending Ngage, Ncontracts’ annual user conference. She always finds inspiration—whether it's from interactive training sessions led by subject matter experts or from seeing how other bankers creatively use Ncontracts solutions. “You see other people doing things and you're like, well, if they can do it, I can do it.”  

Knowledge as a Service. Asking questions can be daunting if you don’t feel comfortable talking to your customer support team. Whether at Ngage or chatting one-on-one with an Ncontracts team member, Lee Ann feels understood. “A lot of the people I visit with at Ngage [are] bankers…It makes it much easier to talk about something if you’ve been on the other side of the desk.”  

Looking Ahead 

As Signature Bank grows and expands its team, Lee Ann will continue to rely on Nfindings and deepen her footprint within the Ncontracts suite of solutions. Jennifer Stanick, VP Compliance Officer and CRA Officer, actively uses Nrisk for integrated risk management and Nverify to streamline the audit process. The bank’s vendor team also uses Nvendor, a vendor management solution.  

Ncontracts Implementation Tips from Signature Bank  

Lee Ann recommends that institutions implementing Ncontracts solutions should: 

Ask questions. "Ask anything you don't understand. Don't try to figure it out." Lee Ann works directly with the Ncontracts customer team if she has questions about the software's features. She also gets advice from other bankers who use Ncontracts products, many of whom she's met at Ngage. 

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