Case Study: Bank of Montreal achieves 75% faster 3rd-party risk assessments and rapid pandemic preparedness with Coupa Software

BMO Quickly Incorporates Pandemic Concerns into its Digital 3rd-Party Risk Management Program

Bank of Montreal (BMO), one of North America’s largest banks with $987 billion in assets, faced heightened regulatory and corporate-social-responsibility scrutiny—made more urgent by the COVID-19 pandemic—to ensure third- and fourth-party suppliers remained secure, compliant and resilient. The bank needed a faster, centralized way to assess supplier risk, meet regulator “stress tests,” and keep CSR and compliance data up to date across many business units.

BMO implemented a digitized third‑party risk program on the Coupa BSM platform—using simple digital questionnaires, automated scoring, a central repository for risk/CSR data, and community-supplied COVID assessments—to embed risk controls across sourcing and purchasing. The change cut 3rd‑party risk assessment cycle times by about 75% across 600+ assessments per year, streamlined regulatory compliance, centralized supplier data, improved service levels, and enabled rapid pandemic risk responses to regulators.

Bank of Montreal

Pamela Schott

VP, Global Third-Party Risk Management and Supplier Performance