Home > Worked examples > HarbourBank vendor review

Fictional worked example

Structure the AI risk you reviewGate: Vendor review

One schema turned mismatched vendor submissions into a comparable review, without ranking any of them.

Evidence-gate card

HarbourBank vendor review

Fictional company, real review pattern.

Gate

Vendor review

Reviewer

Bank third-party AI risk reviewers

Trigger

Vendor onboarding review

Evidence requested

Vendor model change control, human oversight settings, incident history and third-party model terms in a comparable schema.

Situation

HarbourBank, a fictional regulated bank, reviews AI-enabled vendors before it onboards them. The AI-governance evidence arrives in a different shape from every vendor, and the review team cannot compare like with like.

Before Custara

The team reads each submission on its own terms, in its own format. Comparing two vendors means re-reading both from the start, and a review takes weeks per vendor.

What Custara prepared

Custara prepared a common schema for each vendor submission, so the review team saw the same categories, the same status map and the same missing-evidence view before review started.

GER-00X · FICTIONAL

Scope: vendor review · Evidence period: current cycle

Record map in one consistent schema

Category Vendor A Vendor B
Model change control present needs source
Human oversight settings present present
Incident history needs source present
Third-party model terms present missing

Vendor A

  • Model change control, status: present
  • Human oversight settings, status: present
  • Incident history, status: needs source
  • Third-party model terms, status: present

Vendor B

  • Model change control, status: needs source
  • Human oversight settings, status: present
  • Incident history, status: present
  • Third-party model terms, status: missing

No score, no rank and no ordering. Structuring only.

Fictional record. Status reflects record completeness, not governance judgement. Not a score, an assessment or a certification.

Gap visible

One vendor still needs source on incident history, and another is missing third-party model terms. The comparison keeps both visible without scoring either vendor.

Shown, not hidden. No score state.

Exported pack

A structured review pack that lets HarbourBank compare the submissions side by side in one schema.

Reused later

The same schema can be reused across the vendor book and for the next onboarding review.

Boundary

Custara put the submissions in one shape so they could be compared. HarbourBank's reviewers decided what to accept.

Custara put the submissions in one shape so they could be compared. It did not score them, rank them, or decide which vendor to accept. That stayed with HarbourBank.

Custara prepares the evidence record. It does not assess, score, classify, certify, rate, advise or recommend.

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