PCV Murcor Joins Shared Assessments Program

March 26, 2014 - PRLog -- POMONA, CA – March 26, 2014 – PCV Murcor™, a leading provider of real estate valuations for the mortgage industry’s largest lenders, servicers, brokers and insurers, has joined the Shared Assessments Program™, a member-driven industry body that aims to create standardization, consistency, efficiency and cost savings in the vendor risk management process. The addition of PCV Murcor will help provide additional insight and valuation expertise to a collaborative industry effort aimed at creating sustainable solutions for the evolving regulatory environment.

By joining the program, PCV Murcor seeks to help bring simplicity, efficiency and increased coordination to tackle common industry-wide problems concerning compliance and regulatory requirements. With this goal, the entire industry can benefit from rigorous, yet less time consuming, audit processes that require fewer resources to complete. The Shared Assessments Program creates opportunity for increased efficiency by creating a shared toolbox of protocols for industry companies to build better processes together.

“We think everyone can agree that a more streamlined compliance and oversight system is better for the entire industry,” said Russell Lewis, CIO of PCV Murcor, “We also believe everyone would agree that the ability to increase efficiencies and accuracy while reducing the resources required to meet or exceed regulatory obligations is, collectively, a good thing. This is a needed initiative and we’re committed to doing our part to help create solutions that will benefit the entire industry.”

Comprised of a community of risk management experts focused on implementing efficient and effective industry standard practices, the Shared Assessments Program was created by leading financial institutions and accounting firms. These include companies like Goldman Sachs™, Deloitte™, Ernst & Young™, U.S. Bank™, JPMorgan Chase™ and dozens more.

“We couldn’t be happier to have PCV Murcor join the Shared Assessments Program, which demonstrates their commitment to help drive comprehensive third party risk assessment and management standards,” said, Catherine Allen, Chairman and CEO of The Santa Fe Group, the managing agent of the Shared Assessments Program. “Having an established leader of real estate valuations as champions for the Program increases the breadth and depth of knowledge that keeps the Shared Assessments Program Tools on the leading edge of third party risk assurance. PCV Murcor’s collaboration with cross industry peers to address challenging issues in information and data security, privacy and business continuity, helps our members better respond to regulatory requirements, such as those issued by the Fed, CFPB and OCC. We look forward to making even greater progress with their insight and expertise added to the conversation.”

As part of the program, PCV Murcor has integrated the Shared Assessments Standard Information Gathering (SIG) questionnaire and Agreed Upon Procedures (AUP) for onsite assessments into its operations. The SIG questionnaire is designed to determine how information technology and data security risks are managed across a broad spectrum of risk control areas. The AUP is used by companies to evaluate the controls their vendors have in place for IT security, data protection, privacy, business continuity and related risk areas.

For more information about PCV Murcor visit: www.pcvmurcor.com

For more information about Shared Assessments visit: www.sharedassessments.org

About PCV Murcor

For over 30 years, PCV Murcor has provided real estate valuations for the country’s largest lenders, servicers, brokers and insurers. Founded in 1981 and based in Pomona, California, PCV Murcor is focused on delivering credible valuations and broker price opinions (BPOs) on a broad spectrum of commercial and residential properties. The company offers a full slate of real estate valuation products and consulting services, and prides itself on both the accuracy and the high quality of the valuations and customer service it provides all clients.

The PCV Murcor name and logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Murcor, Inc.

About the Shared Assessments Program

The Shared Assessments Program (sharedassessments.org) is the trusted source in third-party risk management, with resources to effectively manage the critical components of the vendor risk management lifecycle; creating efficiencies and lowering costs for all participants; kept current with regulations, industry standards and guidelines, and the current threat environment; adopted globally across a broad range of industries both by service providers and their customers. Through membership and use of the Shared Assessments Program Tools (the Agreed Upon Procedures, Standard Information Gathering questionnaire and Vendor Risk Management Maturity Model), Shared Assessments offers companies and their service providers a faster, more efficient and less costly means of conducting rigorous assessments of controls for IT and data security, privacy and business continuity. The Shared Assessments Program is managed by The Santa Fe Group (www.santa-fe-group.com), a strategic consulting company based in Santa Fe, New Mexico.