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United Bank Success Story

United Bank Complies with Contract Management Guidance with Ntelligent Contracts Assisstant

Founded in 1905, United Bank in Zebulon, Georgia, has deep roots in its small-town community and is committed to extraordinary service. As part of that mission, the bank works with third parties to offer all the technologies its customers expect, including mobile banking apps and interactive teller machines.

Lisa Maxwell, Vice President, Information Security/Vendor Manager, is responsible for third-party risk management (TPRM) at the bank, leveraging contracts to mitigate risk. Maxwell uses Ntelligent Contracts Assistant (NCA), the AI-powered contract management tool that is part of Nvendor, to make the most of her vendor management resources.

Asset Size
$2.2 billion
Location
Zebulon, Georgia
Customer Since
2023
Website
https://www.accessunited.com/

The Challenge

Third-party risk management is always evolving, and Lisa is tasked with ensuring that $2.2 billion-asset United Bank keeps pace. With the release of the Interagency Guidance on Third-Party Relationships: Risk Management in 2023, Maxwell saw the need to improve the bank’s contract review process. 

“This year we actually changed our vendor management terminology to ‘third-party risk management’ to demonstrate that we’re aware of the guidance and working to comply.”

While Maxwell regularly reviewed contracts, the process wasn’t formalized and sometimes staff wouldn’t share a contract with her until after it was signed – missing the opportunity to identify provisions that could have been strengthened to benefit the bank.

“With the new guidance that came out, when you look at the percentage of the guidance that’s related to the activity before the vendor truly becomes a vendor and the ways that every contract has to meet detailed regulatory expectations – if we don’t have it addressed, we’re going to have issues, especially for the contracts that are signed after the guidance came out.”

Manually reviewing contracts to identify potential risks was time consuming and tedious. “We have over 100 vendors, including 48 critical and GLBA vendors – and those contracts are massive.”

The Solution

United Bank implemented Ntelligent Contracts Assistant (NCA), a module of Nvendor, to streamline and enhance its contract review process. NCA harnesses artificial intelligence trained by Ncontracts’ legal and contract management experts to quickly extract key information from third-party vendor contracts and agreements, making it possible for financial institutions to easily:

  • Score contracts for risk and adherence to regulatory requirements 
  • Generate summaries of key contract terms 
  • Automatically create alerts for key dates 
  • Search contracts for key terms and provisions (including renewal dates and price increases)

The Result

While still in the early stages of implementation, Maxwell is already seeing benefits from NCA:

Reduced third-party risk. NCA helps ensure contracts align with the latest third-party risk management guidance. “Almost half of the guidance is related to activities that take place before a contract is ever signed. If the regulators are putting that much emphasis on pre-contract or pre-signature, we need to do it well.”

Align contracts with regulatory expectations. “There’s a scorecard that compares your contract to 17 regulatory requirements and lets you know if you meet them or not. If one of the 17 items doesn’t apply to your contract, you can remove the item to give it a more true representation of the contract.”

Uncover opportunities to improve contract terms. “People didn’t always know to send me contracts before they were signed. Now I run the contract through the NCA program first, and it identifies any areas of deficiency. From there we can request any modifications to the agreement before it’s signed.”

Better decision making. “As we’re coming around for renewals, I can run the contract scorecard in NCA and see which vendors need refreshed contract verbiage to meet the recent regulatory requirements.”

More comprehensive board reporting. “The package that I created for the board meeting this year was much more robust. I love the ability to provide the Vendor Risk Overview report for all of our managed vendors.”

Responsive product enhancements. “The team at Ncontracts listens, and we can actually see the things we recommend and suggest becoming part of the software. We can see the product evolving with our input.”

Quick Overview

Primary examiner: FDIC

Products: Ntelligent Contracts 
Assistant (NCA), Nvendor with 
Professional Services and Cyber 
Monitoring

The Results:

  • Reduced third-party risk
  • Align contracts with regulatory expectations
  • Uncover opportunities to improve contract terms
  • Better decision making
  • More comprehensive board reporting
  • Responsive product enhancements

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Looking Ahead

As the bank continues to integrate NCA into its processes, Lisa anticipates leveraging NCA’s capabilities to review contracts for a wider range of third parties, including infrastructure and professional services.

NCA Tips from United Bank

Maxwell recommends that banks implementing Ntelligent Contracts Assistant should:

  1. Start small with the number of vendors and gradually expand.
  2. Focus initially on the vendors that pose the highest risk.
  3. Implement NCA at the same time as the rest of Nvendor for maximum benefit. 
  4. Use the tool to align language and processes with current regulatory guidance.

“My advice would be for the initial implementation to start small with the number of vendors that you add and then gradually expand your scope,” Maxwell says. “Start with the things that matter the most and are your biggest risk, and then expand from there.”

“My advice would be for the initial implementation to start small with the number of vendors that you add and then gradually expand your scope. Start with the things that matter the most and are your biggest risk, and then expand from there.”
Lisa Maxwell, Vice President, Information Security/Vendor Manager, United Bank

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