NYCB Case Study

New York Community Bank Significantly Reduces Due Diligence Costs by Automating Audit Requests

While New York Community Bank (NYCB) often maintains a conservative approach to change, the need for addressing their antiquated internal audit request process demanded a more aggressive approach. The conspicuous inefficiencies of their IT audit request process were inconsistent with New York Community Bank’s culture of maximizing efficiency without sacrificing quality.

For NYCB, the internal and external auditing process involved lengthy questionnaires and 150-200 NYCB users who had the expertise to answer individual audit questions. The old process’ inefficiencies, that of using their Help Desk system, spreadsheets, file sharing, emails and other generic software became even more apparent when trying to address questions, collaborate as a team, or address issues that surfaced in the process. Further exacerbating the loss in productivity was their file management, aggregation and visibility challenges across audits and lack of comprehensive reporting views given the use of multiple applications and email threads. Additional issues associated with an inefficient process resulted in even more time lost to their laborious, yet necessary auditing process.

Looking for an opportunity to address performance, NYCB’s First Senior Vice President, IT Senior Director of Applications, Sharon Michitsch and her staff researched and analyzed several alternatives. They evaluated other applications and even tried to augment their current process, but these alternatives needed either massive amounts of customization or required significant time, resources and money to execute. The idea of massive customization or significant costs (or both) were incongruent with NYCB’s core values and culture. Sharon and her team needed a solution that fit her requirements of providing a fast, secure, efficient and affordable solution.

The epiphany for Sharon and her team was their introduction to CENTRL’s Assess360, a software platform specifically designed for diligence and audits. To receive her management’s approval, Sharon and her team tested Assess360, factored its relatively low cost and deduced there would be a positive and fast ROI. Sharon and her team also saw Assess360’s ability to deliver a comprehensive view of their entire audit process. In one platform her team could now, distribute, collaborate, answer, aggregate and report via a single platform. It solved her issues with version control, aggregate reporting and error checking, but the clincher for Sharon was it could be implemented and integrated in less than six weeks.

NYCB also looked beyond their internal audit needs and plan to use CENTRL’s Assess360 and Vendor360 for their external audits, external third-party hardware/software assessments and risk management capabilities. Using the same CENTRL instance, NYCB can manage the vendor selection, assessment, reporting and evaluation of their third-party vendors from an IT perspective.

As with most change, some of the NYCB participants resisted, but with CENTRL’s intuitive interface and the realization they could complete their portion faster and easier, NYCB contributors quickly embraced the innovative new process. Sharon summarized the change by saying, “When we showed our NYCB audit contributors and IT GRC team Assess360, they commented on the foreseen efficiencies derived by using the platform. For the IT GRC team, they saw the efficiency gains but also appreciated the 360 view of the entire audit process. After our initial meetings, my team had a real sense of accomplishment and felt great about making the process more efficient.”

NYCB’s auditing process continues to evolve, and Sharon values the ability to easily customize her application in conjunction with CENTRL’s support team. “We appreciate the speed and responsiveness of the CENTRL support and development team. Our relationship with CENTRL has evolved to more of a partnership than a typical vendor-client connection.”

The positive results seen by NYCB are symbolic of many companies that are leveraging Assess360 to improve efficiencies, insights and their bottom line. To learn more about CENTRL’s audit solutions, contact customersuccess@centrl.ai.