FOCUS Bank Replaces Manual Spreadsheets and Workflows with a Single Fintech Oversight Platform
FOCUS Bank
“I would definitely say if you're considering onboarding something like Themis, do it sooner than you think you need to. I would almost guarantee that it's going to save a lot of headache in the long run.”
- Kayla Jones, Chief FinTech Banking Officer
FOCUS Bank supports fintech partners through embedded banking programs. As its program grew, its small compliance and relationship management team needed a centralized, collaborative system for due diligence, oversight, and policy management, not a patchwork of spreadsheets and shared drives they'd relied on. The bank was launching its second fintech partner when it began evaluating GRC platforms built for sponsor banking. Themis fit the bill.
Before Themis, FOCUS Bank ran its fintech compliance program on spreadsheets and email, later shifting some work to Microsoft Teams for a shared space, but without built-in tracking or automation. Version control was a constant headache, since revised documents couldn't be linked to their original review and every update started a new thread. Approvals were just as informal, relying on manually edited cover sheets and a Teams approval feature that never cleared completed items from the queue. Folder structures added to the problem with files organized however each staffer saw fit, so colleagues often lost time finding the document they needed. Looking ahead to more fintech partners and more complex oversight, the team knew their manual approach wouldn't scale.
FOCUS Bank implemented Themis to bring prospect evaluation, due diligence, policy management, and ongoing monitoring into a single collaborative platform, accessible to both the FOCUS Bank team and their fintech partners.
FOCUS Bank's first initiative with Themis was overhauling how it collects due diligence information from prospective fintech partners. Using Themis Questionnaires, prospects submit responses and documentation directly into the platform instead of updating a spreadsheet or emailing files back and forth, giving the team real-time visibility into a prospect's progress and replacing the old guesswork of whether a prospect had started, stalled, or gone quiet.
Themis eliminated the disconnected, version-by-version email chains that once accompanied every policy review. FOCUS Bank now publishes an approved policy and unlocks it for a fintech partner to update directly, with Themis automatically routing each new version to the right internal reviewers by document type. Collaborative comment sections let the team and its partners work through feedback within the record, while an internal-only layer lets compliance align first, cutting back-and-forth and keeping findings from reaching partners prematurely.
FOCUS Bank uses Monitoring & Testing to manage quarterly audits and sample-based reviews, replacing its former shared-folder process in Teams. Each loan or account in a sample gets its own line item, with findings tracked and, where necessary, pushed directly into Issue Management for a structured, repeatable process.
Themis's designated locations for policies, procedures, and partner-specific documents gave FOCUS Bank a consistent structure that didn't depend on any one person's filing habits. Combined with the platform's collaborative and internal comment threads, the team no longer loses time hunting for the right document version or wondering who still needs to weigh in.
With Themis, FOCUS Bank's compliance and relationship management teams now work from a single, shared source of truth:
With monitoring, testing, and policy workflows still becoming fully embedded, the team already sees clear potential for even greater time savings ahead. Having moved from disconnected systems to one collaborative platform, FOCUS Bank can now confidently bring on more fintech partners, with every future partner managed in Themis from the first intake conversation. As the team's own reflection makes clear, they wish they'd adopted Themis before completing their first manual buildout.
For Kayla Jones, that shift has made Themis "a must-have tool" for a team that no longer manages compliance one spreadsheet at a time: "It's efficient. It is really an efficient and effective tool for us." As FOCUS Bank grows its fintech partnership pipeline, the team is optimistic the efficiencies already gained will only compound.
