AUSTIN, Tx., February 4- The Credit Union Information Security Professionals Association (CUISPA) is taking an industry-wide approach to Vendor Risk Management with the recent formation of the credit union Vendor Management Alliance (VMAlliance).

Announced February 3rd, at the CUISPA2008 IT Risk Management Summit in Austin, Texas, the VMAlliance has been established to bring credit unions, vendors, and regulators together to cooperatively shape risk management requirements, and bring clarity, efficiencies, and cost reductions to the due diligence process, for both credit unions and their vendors.

Details of the VMAlliance were shared with more than 120 of the industry’s top IT security officers at the recent CUISPA2008 Summit in Austin, Texas. Session panelists included Kelly Dowell, Executive Director of CUISPA, Robert Miles, ISO for PSCU Financial Services, Ray Murphy, Information Security Program Manager for Navy FCU, Joyce Crawshaw, representative for the BITS Shared Assessment Program, Joe Visconti, former NCUA executive of Visconti Consulting, and Andrew Taylor, of Jwaala, Inc.

“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,” explains Joe Visconti, former NCUA executive and CUISPA Board Member. “The objective is to develop oversight processes that are effective and that can be shared, reducing duplicity. Duplicate efforts are expensive and non-productive. We are creating a program that includes cooperation from the vendor and the financial institution community that will define standards and provide due diligence in a more consistent and comprehensive manner.”

Dowell adds, “The goal of the VMAlliance is to centralize information and communication to define standardized practices and provide credit unions and the vendor community with a valuable resource to manage their relationships and the associated risk. We believe we are developing a solution where we can provide value to all stakeholders.”

The VMAlliance is under development with an anticipated launch date in Q2/2008. CUISPA is actively seeking input throughout the development process. For additional information logon to www.vmalliance.com

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