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Reevaluating and redesigning a product governance framework

Challenges and opportunities for the banking organizations (organizations)

Beyond satisfying supervisory expectations, an effective product governance framework is key to elevating an organization’s competitive edge. Organizations are now actively evaluating their existing governance models, processes, and technology to drive better commercial outcomes, meet market demands, and enhance product risk management.

Why design an end-to-end product governance framework

Organizations are facing heightened expectations from the regulators globally to modernize their product governance framework and better manage the heightened risks posed by today’s evolving product landscape (e.g., the introduction of novel products such as digital assets and “green” products). However, organizations are struggling to strike the appropriate balance between commercial outcomes, delivering for clients, and product risk management.

Managing the growing product governance supervisory expectations and modernizing the associated end-to-end processes is not an easy undertaking. While a rationalized and simplified process will go a long way, enough time and thought should be given to designing the target-state product governance process. Organizations are rethinking product governance by redesigning legacy processes and investing in technology capable of supporting an end-to-end product governance framework.

An effective product governance framework should consist of:

The benefits

When done effectively, the enhanced product governance framework benefits customers, businesses, risk management (financial and non-financial), and control functions. The primary benefits of strengthened product governance include the following:

Efficient and standardized process
  • Move from product ideation to market faster
  • Ability to execute a consistent and easy-to-navigate approval process
  • Reduce duplicative effort and unnecessary bureaucracy
Informed product strategy
  • Ability to make data-driven decisions (e.g., product prioritization)
  • Ability to manage return on investment (ROI) at product and portfolio levels
Improved risk management
  • Capacity to continuously measure and mitigate risk through product life cycle
  • “Know your products” toolkits facilitate risk monitoring
  • Ability to demonstrate compliance with regulatory obligations with enhanced reporting and metrics

Getting started

As you get started with your organization’s product governance transformation, you may want to consider the following questions:

  • Does your organization have a defined end-to-end product governance framework including a governance/committee structure and policies/procedures for new product approval, product taxonomy, and ongoing monitoring?
  • Does your organization have an inventory of products and services with up-to-date risk ratings easily accessible?
  • Does your organization have a new product approval process that enables the business to get products to market quickly without trading off effective risk assessment?
  • Does your organization have user-friendly and integrated technology capabilities to support the end-to-end product governance life cycle?

Stay ahead

Download our report to gain insights on how your organization may design and implement industry-leading, agile product governance programs. And if you are interested in a discussion, don’t hesitate to reach out.