Stearns Bank Teams With Risk Management Company to Bolster Financial Technology

(KNSI) — St. Cloud-based Stearns Bank N.A. has partnered with risk management and compliance solutions company Sardine to enhance Stearns Bank’s financial technology program.

As the demand for faster money movement increases, the risk of fraud increases. Stearns Bank and Sardine are teaming up to create and implement multi-layered fraud detection and prevention tools to safeguard faster payment offerings.

A joint press release says the collaboration marks a “first-of-its-kind approach in community banking to provide an all-in-one risk management and compliance platform for sponsored programs to address evolving regulatory and compliance requirements.”

Florida-based Sardine says its all-in-one platform helps sponsor banks to manage fintech oversight risks, including real-time fraud detection and transaction monitoring, without needing multiple service providers.

Stearns Bank. N.A. is a $2.2 billion, independently-owned financial institution with locations in Minnesota, Florida and Arizona and over 35,000 small business customers nationwide, in every state across the U.S.

“Sardine breaks down data silos and enables our teams to efficiently identify issues for remediation and quickly pull together and share relevant data for further audit, examination, and regulatory purposes as needed,” said Josh Hofer, Chief Risk & Information Security Officer of Stearns Bank. “This allows us to keep up with fintech innovation and scale our fintech offerings while enhancing risk management and streamlining compliance – what we’re providing with Sardine is transformative for fintechs, community banks, and fintech sponsorship.”

“As regulations continue to evolve and scrutiny into the fintech space intensifies, which it should, Stearns Bank continues to prioritize risk management and compliance in its fintech partnerships and sponsorship offerings,” said Kelly Skalicky, President and CEO of Stearns Bank. “We continue to assess and select our fintech partners based on our exacting Stearns Bank ‘Risk-Management 1st’ standards, selecting compliance-focused partners like Sardine committed to an elevated and always-maturing risk management model for deploying fintech-facilitated banking services.”

Skalicky added, “By leveraging our risk management and compliance expertise and Sardine’s advanced compliance and monitoring technology, we can provide greater access to a wider range of secure banking services and capabilities with embedded future-forward compliance and risk management systems, proactively anticipating next-gen regulatory requirements.”

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