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Not that they ever were simple, but there has certainly been a notable uptick in the complexity of legal agreements between financial institutions (FIs) and service providers recently.

The driving factors behind this trend are logical­, with the current regulatory environment requiring more aspects of vendor contract relationships to be formalized. Particularly where service providers have access to customer data or support critical operations, enhanced regulatory scrutiny of third-party obligations creates added motivation for both FIs and vendors to limit their exposure. Documenting each party’s responsibilities in detail may help, but in the event of an issue, the hard truth is that customers will look to their FI for resolution, not a back-office provider whose name they don’t recognize.   

Vendor contract management is something that every financial institution (FI) undertakes as part of the cost of doing business. The average number of contracts a bank or credit union may have varies, but it is not unusual to see the number fall in a range of between 100 to 500 contracts on average. 

While every FI is looking for ways to trim costs, many treat vendor contract management as a responsibility that can be simply added to the list of duties held by an employee that probably already has a full plate. The ever-increasing complexity of contracts and the growing number of vendors can make this approach very expensive for an institution. 

In our last blog post, I recounted the industry changes that SRM has witnessed – and in some cases helped drive­­ — since opening our doors 25 years ago. As a follow up, I’d like to highlight a key principle that hasn’t changed since 1992, one that has enabled us to successfully deliver more than $2 billion in savings – and counting – to our financial institution (FI) customers.