Industry

Credit Union

Core impact

• Vendor onboarding reduced from 6+ weeks to < 3 weeks; initial vendor risk review went from 8 to <2 hours

• Immediate clarity on missing risk mitigation information

• SME time preserved and optimized; no more meetings where they have limited involvement

“Within 5 minutes of getting the vendor's packet, Kobalt can tell me exactly where I need to follow up. It integrated seamlessly into my workflow — it’s now my default first step because it cuts out all the noise and differences in formatting.”

Blaine Brankis, Vendor Risk & Resiliency Analyst at Meriwest Credit Union

The Story

Founded in 1961, Meriwest Credit Union is one of Silicon Valley's most established financial institutions, serving over 80,000 families and businesses in the Bay Area with a wide range of innovative financial services and $2.1B in AUM.

As Meriwest has scaled its partnerships with third-party vendors, managing risk and accelerating vendor onboarding became a key operational priority.

The challenge

Before Kobalt, Meriwest’s vendor risk team faced slow, manual onboarding processes:

• Vendor documents vary wildly in structure and completeness

• Reviewing policies, procedures, security reports, and contracts requires looping in multiple subject matter experts (SMEs) and internal stakeholders

• Blaine, who manages vendor risk for Meriwest, waited days for internal input and responses from vendors

• Full onboarding took at least 6 weeks, delaying revenue-generating partnerships

• Contract reviews meant 15-person meetings going point-by-point through documents to ensure all areas of risk were accounted for

The solution and implementation

Meriwest brought in Kobalt to streamline and automate the review process:

• The moment a vendor packet arrives, the team uploads all documents into Kobalt

• After an initial Kobalt analysis, Meriwest already knows:

  • Which risk mitigation information is missing

  • What additional documents to request for SMEs

• Vendors now typically send missing items on day one, dramatically reducing back-and-forth cycles

• Kobalt's analysis allows Meriwest to respond to packet delivery within the day, making for much more responsive engagement with vendors

• Kobalt’s deeper review highlights specific regulatory citations and contract risks, giving SMEs precise focus areas

• Contract reviews shifted from full-team meetings to asynchronous review of Kobalt’s flagged risks

Implementation was immediate — no engineering required.

The Impact

For the Vendor Risk team

• Onboarding time dropped from 6+ weeks to 3 weeks - and shrinking with broader team rollout

• Automatic reviews across BC/DR, Privacy, Infosec, etc.

• Full visibility into missing risk mitigation information within minutes of uploading vendor packets

• SME time preserved; no more preliminary meetings or premature involvement

“It's made us subject matter experts in every part of this process. Before, we'd be waiting on others to tell us what was missing or sufficient. Now I know exactly what’s needed before anyone else gets involved.”

Blaine Brankis, Vendor Risk & Resiliency Analyst at Meriwest Credit Union

For contract management 

• Kobalt flagged contract terms (including unusual indemnification clauses) the team had not previously identified

• Contract reviews became asynchronous and focused, cutting meetings and freeing up time across departments

“Kobalt quickly flags unusual indemnification terms and surfaces possible gaps - making our contract review better, smarter, and more proactive.”

Blaine Brankis, Vendor Risk & Resiliency Analyst at Meriwest Credit Union

For the organization

• Increased confidence across leadership in the vendor risk management program

• Stronger cross-functional engagement — when stakeholders are pulled in, they know their time is well spent

“It’s made our entire vendor risk program stronger, more efficient, and focused. We've been able to provide a higher level of surface to our internal partners. People are more engaged because we're able to quickly get on the same page by addressing specific questions and get contracts completed in a timely manner.”

Blaine Brankis, Vendor Risk & Resiliency Analyst at Meriwest Credit Union