The Crosswise Mission

Helping you with How

I'm struck by all of the beautiful dashboards on the homepages of GRC tools... wouldn't it be amazing to see all of these real-times stats on my program and those of my fintech programs? Wouldn't it be amazing to be able to be able to see all of this information and do x y and z?

Well of course it would, but beautiful dashboards are the output, not the input. When you lift up the hood on all of these "infinitely adaptable" tools, what you're met with is years and hundreds of thousands of dollars of implementation costs, and quite possibly being even more lost than before.

Then come the expensive consultants, the endless days, and the never ending implementation.

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There has to be a better way... what if there was a tool that got into the details with you... that really helped you to get compliant, instead of teasing you with this state of perfect information that's a pipe dream without a 100 person team?

The Compliance Challenge for Fintechs and Banks

The regulatory landscape for financial services has become more complex in recent years, with fintechs and small-to-mid sized banks facing similar compliance challenges as their larger counterparts. Financial firms collectively spend an estimated $160 billion annually on compliance, with $120 billion of that directed toward human resources. However, traditional human-powered compliance systems often fail to keep pace with regulatory changes, leading to gaps that can result in penalties and operational disruptions.

For fintechs and small-to-mid sized banks, the challenge is even more pronounced. Unlike large banks with dedicated compliance departments of thousands, these organizations must manage complex regulatory requirements with more limited resources. Compliance failures can have devastating effects on both customers and business partners, making it crucial for fintechs and banks to adopt more efficient, scalable solutions.

Compliance is no longer just a back-office function—it’s a critical business risk for financial institutions of all sizes. As Sima Gandhi, founder of the Coalition for Financial Ecosystem Standards, recently stated, "Fintechs and banks need to step it up and understand that regulatory requirements are real. Compliance rigor is an expectation."

Why the Traditional CMS Model is Broken

The traditional compliance management model is built on complex, manual systems that rely heavily on human resources. For fintechs and small-to-mid sized banks, this model is unsustainable. The typical process involves months of manual work just to create regulatory inventories and risk assessments, which require constant updates to align with regulatory changes. This approach is not only expensive but also inefficient, especially for organizations without large teams.

Traditional compliance systems generally lean on the following 3 types of software solutions:

1. GRC/IRM Tools: Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance (GRC) or Integrated Risk Management (IRM) tools are often powerful and serve as repositories of information created by humans. They typically include workflow management engines, reporting, and analytics capabilities. However, their reliance on manual setup and maintenance by large compliance teams makes them unsuitable for organizations with more constrained resources. The information and workflows within these systems must be built and managed by human resources, which can be both time-consuming and costly to maintain as regulations evolve.
2. RegTech Solutions: While these point solutions offer some level of automation in specific areas, they generally require manual mapping of regulations to business processes and often come with a steep price tag. Moreover, they are not typically integrated into broader Compliance Management System (CMS) workflows, meaning additional integration work is required to fit them into an organization’s existing compliance structure. These solutions are often favored by larger companies that can afford the additional manual effort and resources required to maintain and integrate them effectively into their compliance programs.
3. Spreadsheets: While useful for early-stage fintechs, spreadsheets quickly become unsustainable as the organization grows and compliance needs multiply.

Enter AI-Powered CMS: A Strategic Advantage for Fintechs and Banks

Crosswise’s AI-powered CMS offers a game-changing solution for fintechs and mid-sized banks, enabling them to achieve the same level of compliance as large banks—but without the need for thousands of compliance personnel. By automating the most labor-intensive tasks and continuously adapting to regulatory changes, Crosswise allows financial institutions to compete on a level playing field while optimizing costs and resources.

Here’s how Crosswise’s CMS stands apart:

1. Autonomous Regulatory Inventory, Risk Assessment
   Crosswise’s proprietary AI engine automatically generates a comprehensive regulatory inventory and risk assessment tailored to your organization’s specific products and jurisdictions. This process, which traditionally takes months of manual labor, is completed in a fraction of the time—reducing manual effort by over 95%+. Additionally, Crosswise’s system continuously assesses which regulations pose the highest risks, allowing organizations to proactively triage these risks and prioritize resources effectively. 
2. Intelligent Policy Generation and Mapping
   Using advanced AI models, Crosswise drafts policy documents and maps them to the regulatory rules relevant to the business. This ensures that compliance frameworks remain up-to-date, aligned with the latest regulations, and scalable as the organization grows. The system connects regulatory obligations to policies, controls, and risk ratings in real time, ensuring continuous compliance and scalability as organizations evolve. Additionally, the system identifies gaps in existing policies, enabling proactive updates and ensuring that no regulatory requirement is overlooked.
3. Continuous Compliance Updates
   As the regulatory landscape changes, Crosswise’s CMS automatically updates the regulatory register and downstream components, such as policies and controls, keeping the entire compliance system evergreen. This automation drastically reduces the manual effort needed to stay compliant and allows organizations to focus on growth and innovation rather than regulatory upkeep.
4. Streamlined Reporting and Issue Management
   Crosswise provides real-time reporting tools that simplify audit preparation, board reporting, and issue management. Additionally, the CMS enables organizations to efficiently respond to Requests for Information (RFIs) from stakeholders such as regulators, banks, and vendors. This ability to swiftly address RFIs improves transparency and reduces the administrative burden of compliance, ensuring stakeholders receive timely and accurate information.

The Technology Behind Crosswise’s CMS

Crosswise’s CMS is powered by a unique combination of AI, advanced data modeling, and a connected knowledge platform. By extracting rules from public regulatory data, normalizing them into a machine-readable format, continuously updating them, and linking them to information changing information about the business, Crosswise enables banks and fintechs to maintain the same level of compliance rigor as large institutions.

The AI-powered system utilizes advanced Large Language Models (LLMs) that not only adapt and improve over time but also provide transparent explanations of their decisions. These models share the logic behind their conclusions, allowing compliance professionals to inspect, modify, or override decisions as needed. This capability builds confidence in the AI system, giving professionals the control to intervene and apply their expertise or preferences where necessary. Crosswise’s networked intelligence also creates a feedback loop, allowing the system to learn from each customer interaction and improve future performance.

Enabling Growth and Innovation in the Financial Services Industry

By leveling the compliance playing field, Crosswise’s AI-powered CMS empowers fintechs and mid-sized banks to focus on growth and innovation. No longer burdened by manual, resource-intensive compliance processes, financial institutions can allocate their resources toward customer service, product development, and market expansion. For compliance professionals, this technology opens up new opportunities to focus on more value-added activities, such as designing strategic frameworks, supervising complex regulatory changes, and ensuring the effectiveness of compliance controls. Instead of handling repetitive tasks, compliance specialists can now contribute in ways that significantly enhance the organization’s regulatory posture.

As Angela Strange from Andreessen Horowitz notes, "Labor is becoming software," and Crosswise is at the forefront of this shift. By leveraging AI for compliance automation, fintechs and banks can meet—and exceed—regulatory requirements with fewer resources, freeing up valuable capacity for innovation while enabling compliance teams to elevate their strategic contributions.

Conclusion: A CMS That Builds Itself

The future of compliance management is here, and it’s powered by AI. Crosswise’s AI-driven CMS enables fintechs and banks to achieve the same level of compliance as large banks—without the need for vast teams or significant resources. By automating compliance processes, reducing costs, and mitigating risks, Crosswise provides financial institutions with the tools they need to stay compliant by design.

With the right technology, compliance can be more than a cost center; it can be a strategic asset that drives growth and trust. Crosswise is committed to helping the financial services industry thrive, enabling fintechs and banks to meet regulatory challenges head-on while positioning themselves for future success.

It’s time to embrace the future of compliance. Let Crosswise help you build a CMS that builds itself, enabling your organization to focus on what really matters—growth and innovation.