Cogent Bank Eliminates Reporting Roadblocks and Positions TPRM Program for Growth with Venminder

The Solution

Cogent Bank found the solution to their vendor management challenges with Venminder, a TPRM platform that helps financial organizations turn vendor management from a fragmented compliance exercise into a structured, defensible risk program. 

Venminder addressed Cogent Bank's challenges by providing a centralized platform that handles the entire vendor management lifecycle while delivering the robust reporting capabilities Jason needed. 

"Some of the driving factors that led us to go toward Venminder is the reporting. The interface, the ease of use, the customer service — that was huge," Jason said. 

The platform transformed how Cogent Bank manages its vendor relationships. Jason uses Venminder to handle risk assessments, store documentation, create and distribute questionnaires, and collect responses from both vendors and internal stakeholders—all in one system. 

The centralized approach brings together all the stakeholders involved in vendor management — from the TPRM team to subject matter experts conducting specialized reviews to the individual liaisons between the bank and vendors. "We have all the points of contacts between ourself to the vendors and as well as the stakeholders involved in that," Jason noted.

The Results

Using Venminder as their central TPRM tool, Cogent Bank has a streamlined vendor management system that serves both daily operations and regulatory requirements. 

Exam-Ready Reporting in Minutes, Not Days. When regulators or external auditors request information, Jason can quickly generate comprehensive reports instead of manually compiling data from multiple sources — providing the visibility needed to demonstrate effective vendor oversight and track program performance. "We're able to quantify why we went in a direction and can show our regulators a third-party risk management program that is consistent. Reporting is a cornerstone in third-party risk management. If you're managing the program and you don't have good reporting, how can you track anything?"

Centralized Documentation Storage. All vendor information now lives in one accessible location rather than scattered across spreadsheets and email threads. The platform captures questionnaires, vendor responses, stakeholder feedback, and any documentation variances in a single system. "Managing risk, documentation storage, that's how I use Venminder on a day-to-day basis...We've centralized the program within Cogent. We still have all the individuals that are liaisons between the bank and the vendors and they use Venminder to document all the responses and all the documentation and any kind of variances."

Streamlined Stakeholder Collaboration. Venminder enables seamless coordination between Jason's TPRM team and the various subject matter experts conducting financial reviews, information security assessments, and other specialized evaluations. "We're crafting questionnaires, sending those questionnaires out to individuals, getting information back from not only the vendors themselves, but the other employees that we work with as well," Jason said. This coordination happens within the platform rather than through scattered emails and meetings.

Positioned for Growth. Cogent Bank currently manages nearly 200 vendors in Venminder, but Jason anticipates significant expansion as the program matures, particularly as the bank begins comprehensive fourth-party assessments. "I really see that exploding because if we're going to really assess all of our fourth parties — you take vendors that have 20, 30 sub-processors — you're going to be managing various amounts of those. So it's going to expand a great deal going into next year, no doubt." The platform enables this growth without requiring proportional increases in headcount. 

Responsive Partnership and Support

For Jason, return on investment extends beyond features to the ongoing partnership. "What the return on investment looks like for me is usability and being able to capture all that information as well as great customer service and everyone listens and everyone's willing to improve and that's great." Since moving to Venminder, Jason has experienced customer service that genuinely cares about addressing issues and continuously improving the platform.