Industry Descriptor: A Leading Financial Technology (FinTech) Cooperative.
The Challenge As a leading financial technology provider, this organization needed to evolve its risk management from a technical “checklist” exercise into a strategic business function. As they prepared for high-stakes FFIEC audits, they required a way to quantify risk that executive leadership could actually act upon. Their existing processes were siloed, making it difficult to prioritize remediation based on actual business impact rather than just technical severity.
The Solution The organization underwent a transformative shift by implementing the FAIR (Factor Analysis of Information Risk) methodology within ServiceNow IRM. This project moved the organization from qualitative “High/Medium/Low” labels to quantitative business risk metrics.
Key project elements included:
- Business-Centric Risk Framework: Implementing a specialized risk methodology to align security findings with potential financial impact.
- Audit Readiness: Streamlining evidence collection and control mapping specifically for FFIEC and SOC requirements to ensure a “compliance-ready” posture.
- Executive Visibility: Developing custom dashboards that translated complex technical vulnerabilities into a “Risk Portrait” for the Board of Directors.
- Process Maturation: Moving beyond basic tracking to an integrated risk-to-remediation workflow that holds stakeholders accountable across the enterprise.
The Impact
- Successful FFIEC Audit: The organization passed their follow-up regulatory audit with “flying colors,” with examiners specifically praising the depth and clarity of the new risk framework.
- Executive Buy-In: By presenting risk in financial terms, the security team secured better alignment and faster resource allocation from the board.
- Efficiency Gains: Automated evidence collection reduced the administrative burden on subject matter experts by approximately 40%.
- Strategic Prioritization: The firm can now prioritize security spending based on which threats pose the greatest financial risk to the organization, rather than chasing every low-level vulnerability.
What the Client Said
“The implementation of the FAIR methodology has completely changed the conversation with our board. We are no longer just talking about ‘security problems’; we are talking about business risk in a language they understand. This shift was instrumental in our success.” — FinTech Executive Team
