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AUSTIN, Texas — The Credit Union Information Security Professionals Association is creating a new group to help credit unions and third-party vendors get together to manage risk and develop best practices.
The creation of the Credit Union Vendor Management Alliance, or VMAlliance, was announced at the CUISPA’s recent 2008 summit in Austin.
The alliance will bring together credit unions, vendors and regulators to “shape risk-management requirements and bring clarity, efficiencies and cost reductions to the due diligence process,” the organization said, and will benefit credit unions and the vendor community.
“In an industry that relies heavily on third-party vendors, this is an area that is in need of improvement and one that can benefit enormously through collaboration,” said Joe Visconti, a former NCUA executive who now is a consultant and CUISPA board member.
CUISPA Executive Director Kelly Dowell said the VMAlliance is expected to launch this spring. “The goal is to centralize information and communication to collaboratively define standardized practices as an industry,” he said. “We believe we are developing a solution where we can provide value to all stakeholders and consequently improve security practices and reduce risk.”
Details of the alliance were first announced during a panel discussion at the February meeting of the group in Austin. The panel included Visconti and Dowell, along with Robert Miles, information security officer for PSCU Financial Services; Ray Murphy, information security program manager for Navy Federal Credit Union; Joyce Crawshaw of the BITS Shared Assessment Program; and Andrew Taylor, CTO of Jwaala Inc.
For more information, go to www.vmalliance.com.
