How FundApps saves 4.5 hours per security review with HyperComply

FundApps is a FinTech company based out of London, New York, and Singapore that’s racing to bring the finance industry into the 21st century by automating manual aspects of complex financing processes.

Vincent Gilbert is the Information Security Lead at FundApps. Until recently, he was the only full-time information security expert at FundApps. That means Vince has a variety of responsibilities– from writing security policies, to working with developers to detect vulnerabilities, to jumping on calls with clients to explain why FundApp’s security protocol is top-notch.

Vince is also responsible for helping client’s conduct due diligence during the sales process. Because financial institutions have such sensitive data as well as strict compliance regulations, they will spend a lot of time making sure that the vendors they work with are trustworthy.

Challenge

With many responsibilities, the team knew there was an opportunity for automation.

As part of the FundApps sales process, financial institutions will conduct due diligence to ensure that FundApps security protocols meet their high standards. This process includes due diligence questionnaires, which contain dozens of questions about a business’s security operations.

Vince was the only information security expert at FundApps, so these questionnaires were taking an inordinate amount of time to complete, especially as the company scaled. Vince estimated that it would take him three minutes to answer each question. With many of these questionnaires having roughly 100 questions, that was 300 minutes, or 5 hours, of his valuable time. With 35 or so questionnaires needing completion each year, 175 hours per year were spent on security questionnaires. 

Although Vince dedicated much of his time to making sure the documentation was up to date so that the questionnaires were easier to fill out, he still worried that the current process was not scalable. Not only that, but the FundApps team believes in using automation to gain efficiency whenever possible.

“I was completing so many due diligence questionnaires and wondering how I could better tackle them. I was answering all of them and could see that as we got more requests, more prospects, and more clients, that the current process would not scale. I asked myself ‘how do we automate this process?’”

Solution

HyperComply’s combination of automation and human review offered time savings and standardization.

Vince and his team needed a solution to help them automate security questionnaires. They looked at HyperComply, as well as a few competitors. One competitor, in particular, offered more comprehensive products for the entire sales process. But Vince would have to take a gamble after only seeing a demo as there was no option for a paid test.

“I loved that when we started working with HyperComply we had the option to do a paid test. That was good because just getting the proof in the pudding rather than a demo made a big difference in showing me the value of the tool.”

Implementing HyperComply was straightforward, as well. “We uploaded our knowledge base and were ready to go,” said Vince. As the FundApps team answered more and more questionnaires, the knowledge base grew, and the answers became more and more accurate.

Results

FundApps now has a streamlined process for creating time-saving, accurate, and automated security questionnaires.

Now that FundApps has been using HyperComply for several months, they’re able to reflect on all the benefits. Thanks to HyperComply, more team members can participate in the process, substantial time is saved, and security questionnaires are not only automated, but accurate.

More team members can participate in the due diligence process

Because Vince was the only information security expert on staff, completing security questionnaires depended on him and his availability. Even going on vacation was a challenge. Thanks to HyperComply, other team members can work on security questionnaires without his oversight.

“Our sales team and client success team both have access to HyperComply. When they get requests from prospects, they can use the platforms themselves. This ability to self-serve has reduced dependency on me, which has not only made my life easier, but given them more autonomy.”

Substantial time saved

Before HyperComply, Vince and his team were spending roughly 175 hours per year on security questionnaires. Now, HyperComply is able to complete security questionnaires at 90% accuracy, shaving off an average of 270 minutes (or 4.5 hours!) for a 100-question questionnaire. 

“The time savings is substantial. The fact that HyperComply can complete 90% of our questionnaires makes a huge difference in how much time we have to spend on them.”

Accurate and automated security questionnaires

Although more participants in the process as well as time savings are huge results, Vince and his team needed a solution that would ultimately deliver accurate and automated security questionnaires that would impress their clients.

Because their prospects are in financial services, they care deeply about reducing risk and protecting sensitive information. With HyperComply, FundApps is more easily able to show that they’re doing just that.