How to Choose the Right Third-Party Risk Exchange Platform: 5 Key Factors to Consider

5 minute read

March 2025

by Kaitlyn Frank

The clock is ticking, and your team is buried under a pile of vendor risk assessments that need review. Requests for updated security documentation are going unanswered from third parties, and even the responses you do get aren’t consistent. The critical data you need to identify unacceptable risk is scattered across multiple platforms.

With each passing day, the backlog grows, leaving your organization exposed to unknown risks. This is the reality many third-party risk managers face—struggling to receive timely vendor data, consolidate it, verify accuracy, and maintain compliance, all while working within limited resources.

So how can your team resurface from the assessment backlog pile? A well-structured, reliable, and easy-to-use third-party risk exchange can transform this process, bringing efficiency, accuracy, and scalability to vendor risk management.

What is a third-party risk exchange?

A third-party risk exchange is a centralized platform designed to streamline and enhance third-party risk management by enabling organizations to share, access, and validate vendor risk assessment data. In today’s evolving risk landscape, third-party risk teams are increasingly turning to third-party risk exchange platforms to streamline their risk assessment processes, improve efficiency, and make more informed decisions.

Assessment exchanges aren’t just meant for businesses to quickly and accurately assess their vendors; a quality exchange database also improves the third-party experience, making it easy for third parties to upload assessment data, share evidence documents with their customers, and update their profile when program status changes.

How to Pick the Right Third-Party Risk Exchange Platform

With multiple exchange platforms on the market, selecting the right one is critical. The success of your TPRM program depends on choosing a solution that offers comprehensive, reliable, and actionable data while also integrating seamlessly with your existing workflows.

To help you make an informed decision, here are five key factors to consider when evaluating third-party risk exchange platforms:

1. Accurate and Relevant Data

The foundation of any effective third-party risk exchange platform is the quality of the data it provides.

When assessing a platform, you need to ensure that it offers up-to-date, complete, and validated vendor assessments. The best exchanges aggregate vendor-reported data with external intelligence sources to provide a comprehensive risk profile without requiring long responses from vendors themselves.

Additionally, platforms that actively engage third parties through dedicated teams that support assessment requests help ensure teams of the accuracy and relevance of the data.

Without reliable data, your risk decisions may be based on outdated or incomplete information, potentially exposing your organization to unnecessary risks. Look for an exchange that offers continuous data validation and easy update functionality, ensuring vendor risk assessments remain current and actionable.

2. Assessment Workflow Features

Efficiency is key in third-party risk management. A strong exchange should provide automation features that minimize manual effort and accelerate the risk assessment workflow. Rather than starting from scratch with every vendor assessment, look for platforms that offer:

  • A library of completed vendor assessments to reduce redundant requests
  • Inherent risk scores that enable you to focus urgent efforts on high-risk vendors
  • Continuous monitoring to detect changes in vendor risk posture

By leveraging workflow features, including and in addition to those we mentioned, your TPRM team can reduce assessment fatigue for both internal teams and vendors while ensuring that assessments remain up to date.

Dive further into each step to selecting a third-party risk exchange in our whitepaper. Read now.

3. External Risk Intelligence from Trusted Sources

Many organizations struggle with data fragmentation, pulling assessment response information from various internal and external sources that provide information in different formats. A robust risk exchange should solve this problem by consolidating and standardizing risk data into a single, comparable view.

When evaluating platforms, consider whether they aggregate:

  • Risk assessments conducted by your organization
  • Vendor self-reported data
  • External intelligence sources, such as cybersecurity ratings, threat intelligence feeds, financial health scores, and regulatory compliance data

The ability to quickly and accurately cross-reference multiple data sources helps validate vendor responses, identify discrepancies, and ensure that your team is working with the most complete and accurate view of third-party risk.

4. Accessible to All Stakeholders

An effective third-party risk exchange should serve as a centralized risk management hub that facilitates collaboration among all key stakeholders. This includes TPRM teams, business users, procurement teams, third parties, and executive decision-makers.

For a platform to be truly valuable, it must provide:

  • A seamless vendor onboarding process, allowing third parties to easily upload and update assessments
  • Transparency into assessment status, vendor risk profiles, and past assessments
  • Easy reporting functionality to provide evidentiary data when your team needs it

A well-structured exchange fosters greater collaboration with your internal teams and your third parties, improving efficiency and ensuring that all parties have visibility into the vendor assessment process.

5. Easy to Implement, Use, and Integrate

Adoption is a major factor in the success of any third-party risk exchange. No matter how powerful a platform is, if it is difficult to implement or cumbersome to use, it will create inefficiencies rather than solve them.

When selecting an exchange, prioritize platforms that offer:

  • A user-friendly, intuitive interface with basic workflow capabilities to enhance the value of your data
  • Seamless integration with existing risk management tools, such as governance, risk, and compliance platforms
  • Clear documentation and customer support to assist with onboarding and ongoing usage

An easy-to-use third-party risk exchange will lead to higher adoption rates across your organization and among your vendors, ultimately driving greater efficiency and improved risk management outcomes.

Why the ProcessUnity Global Risk Exchange Stands Out

Choosing the right third-party risk exchange is an important decision. With ProcessUnity, you’re in good hands. The ProcessUnity Global Risk Exchange offers the most comprehensive solution on the market. As the world’s largest library of third-party risk data and greatest number of highly requested third parties, ProcessUnity provides organizations with unparalleled access to accurate, continuously updated vendor assessments.

The Global Risk Exchange is designed with all five key elements in mind. It delivers validated, aggregated risk data from multiple sources, integrates with existing workflows for seamless assessments, and ensures accessibility for all stakeholders. With intuitive automation features and an easy-to-use interface, TPRM teams can quickly assess vendors, prioritize risks, and respond proactively to emerging threats.

By leveraging the ProcessUnity Global Risk Exchange, organizations can streamline their overall third-party risk management programs, enhance decision-making, and reduce vulnerability exposure. If you’re looking for a risk exchange that delivers accuracy, efficiency, and scalability, ProcessUnity is the best choice for your team.

Get started with ProcessUnity’s Global Risk Exchange Today

The right third-party risk exchange platform can transform your TPRM program, providing you with the data and tools needed to manage vendor risk effectively. ProcessUnity’s Global Risk Exchange combines access to data with a customizable, adaptable platform that works how you need it to for assessing vendor risk.

Get started with the Exchange today and request a demo with our team.

Read more about the current assessment environment, and how The Global Risk Exchange helps manage risk when you download our newest whitepaper.

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About Us

ProcessUnity is a leading provider of cloud-based applications for risk and compliance management. The company’s software as a service (SaaS) platform gives organizations the control to assess, measure, and mitigate risk and to ensure the optimal performance of key business processes. ProcessUnity’s flagship solution, ProcessUnity Vendor Risk Management, protects companies and their brands by reducing risks from third-party vendors and suppliers. ProcessUnity helps customers effectively and efficiently assess and monitor both new and existing vendors – from initial due diligence and onboarding through termination. Headquartered outside of Boston, Massachusetts, ProcessUnity is used by the world’s leading financial service firms and commercial enterprises. For more information, visit www.processunity.com.