Columbia Bank Selects MetricStream for Integrated GRC

PALO ALTO, Calif., Aug. 23, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Columbia Bank, a Northwest regional community bank, has chosen MetricStream to integrate and streamline multiple Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) initiatives including internal audits, financial reporting control management, operational risk management, regulatory compliance, IT governance, policy management, and issue management.

MetricStream GRC Solution will enable Columbia Bank to consolidate these various risk, compliance, and audit management programs on a single, centralized GRC platform. As a result, the bank will be able to improve coordination across various assurance groups, gain real-time risk-control intelligence, and eliminate operational redundancies.

Headquartered in Tacoma, Washington, Columbia Bank is a full-service commercial bank with $4.8 billion in assets and 102 banking offices throughout Washington and Oregon.

As mid-sized financial institutions strive to compete and excel in an industry dominated by global banks, they are subject to many of the same stringent regulatory pressures that large firms face - but with fewer resources and leaner IT infrastructure. The regulatory requirements they must comply with include safety and soundness requirements from the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) and the Federal Reserve, consumer protection laws and regulations, FFIEC (Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council) mandates, SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) guidelines, and financial reporting standards.

MetricStream provides a GRC solution specifically designed for community banks, regional banks, and credit unions. The solution ships with:

• Rich, out-of-the-box functionality including well-defined workflows based on industry best practices
• A quick deployment model that can either be on-premises or on-demand
• Easy-to-use and intuitive role-based user interfaces ensuring swift adoption among the banks' staffs

Columbia Bank will accelerate the GRC solution roll-out by adopting MetricStream Cloud - the simplest way to get GRC applications up and running. MetricStream's state-of-the-art virtualization and private cloud technologies offer excellent reliability, security, and flexibility to support a wide range of customer requirements.

"MetricStream offers a centralized platform that will streamline risk management processes across multiple business units and help to eliminate redundancies," says Christine Eagan, Enterprise Risk Manager. "It is a scalable solution with many potential applications that will enable our risk management function to grow and evolve over time."

The MetricStream solution will enable Columbia Bank to strengthen its risk management efforts through capabilities such as a reusable risk-control library, risk maps and scorecards, flexible risk-control self-assessment models, and Key Risk Indicators. The solution will also streamline the complete audit lifecycle, and enable closed-loop issue management.

Consistent compliance and controls processes will be facilitated across the enterprise, eliminating any deviations, errors, and inconsistencies. Integrated collaboration tools will enhance vendor oversight and compliance monitoring.

The MetricStream platform will also provide a centralized IT risk management framework to simplify IT risk identification and analysis, control design, control monitoring and issue management.

"We are pleased to collaborate with Columbia Bank as they take the strategic path towards integrated risk management and sustainable regulatory compliance," says Gaurav Kapoor, COO at MetricStream. "Having successfully implemented GRC solutions at several large financial institutions and global banks, MetricStream is excited about bringing key learnings, best practices, and regulatory content to regional banks, community banks, credit unions, and mid-sized financial institutions. We look forward to helping them effectively deal with increasing regulatory requirements from agencies and authorities like the FDIC, the Federal Reserve, and the FFIEC."

About MetricStream

MetricStream is a market leader in Enterprise-wide Governance, Risk, Compliance (GRC) and Quality Management Solutions for global corporations. MetricStream solutions are used by leading corporations such as UBS, P&G, Constellation Energy, Pfizer, Philips, BAE Systems, SanDisk, Cummins and Sonic Automotive in diverse industries such as Financial Services, Healthcare, Life Sciences, Energy and Utilities, Food, Retail, CPG, Government and Manufacturing to manage their risk management, quality processes, regulatory and industry-mandated compliance and corporate governance initiatives, as well as several million compliance professionals worldwide via the www.ComplianceOnline.com portal. MetricStream is headquartered in Palo Alto, California and can be reached at www.metricstream.com.

Media contact:

Mr. Vinay Bapna
[email protected] 
650-620-2955

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SOURCE MetricStream