Two leading integrated risk management providers have partnered to bring long-overdue modernization to vendor oversight for the community financial services sector. The new offering, Vendor Lifecycle Assurance, better equips community banks and credit unions to manage third-party risk as they deepen their reliance on fintech, cloud platforms and outsourced services.
Meeting the growing demands of third-party risk
Vendor relationships now rank among the most complex sources of operational and cybersecurity risk for financial institutions. The NCUA’s 2025 Cybersecurity and Credit Union System Resilience Annual Report found that vendor-related incidents accounted for approximately 73% of cyber events reported since September 2023. At the same time, 58% of community bankers identified cybersecurity as an extremely important risk in the Conference of State Bank Supervisors’ 2025 Annual Survey of Community Banks.
Against this backdrop of mounting risk, regulators expect financial institutions to continuously monitor third-party providers and demonstrate that oversight with clear documentation throughout the vendor lifecycle. Many institutions are working in good faith to meet this requirement, but outdated tools leave them relying on fragmented spreadsheets and manual tracking that slow vendor reviews and create operational bottlenecks.
Vendor Lifecycle Assurance offers a new approach. The solution combines automated vendor management workflows within ViClarity’s governance, risk and compliance platform with hands-on oversight from Curated Cyber’s security experts. Credit unions and community banks gain an easy-to-implement, structured process to manage vendor risk from onboarding through ongoing monitoring.
Vendor Lifecycle Assurance supports the full vendor lifecycle, including vendor onboarding, risk tiering, documentation management, ongoing monitoring and exam readiness. The solution is now available to all US-based community banks and credit unions.
Leadership commentary on the new solution
“The people responsible for vendor oversight are working incredibly hard, but the process often breaks down in the day-to-day workflow,” said vCISO Heath Stanley, president of Curated Cyber. “When you’re managing dozens or hundreds of vendors with spreadsheets and email threads, it becomes very difficult to maintain the level of visibility today’s cyber threats demand. Reviews stall, documentation gets scattered and follow-ups get missed.”
Curated Cyber CEO Brandon Gettert added: “Our goal is simple: let financial institutions get back to what they do best. Vendor Lifecycle Assurance provides the structure so banks and credit unions can focus on running their institutions rather than managing vendor paperwork.”
“Financial institutions are dealing with a rapidly expanding ecosystem of vendors, fintech partners and service providers,” said Ogie Sheehy, Global CEO of ViClarity. “By combining ViClarity’s technology with Curated Cyber’s operational expertise, we’re giving teams a practical way to manage vendor risk without increasing the administrative burden on their teams. In essence, Vendor Lifecycle Assurance establishes a single, structured process that organizes vendor oversight and keeps teams accountable and moving forward.”