What is Governance, Risk, Compliance (GRC)? Setup + Best Practices

Every fast-moving finance business runs on one simple mechanism: decisions, actions, and consequences.

• Who approved that payout?
• Why was that vendor cleared?
• Was that onboarding flow compliant? 

These questions don’t come up when things go right. 

…But they define everything when things don’t.

That’s where GRC steps in. 

Not as a cost center, not as a corporate ritual, but as a system that ensures critical decisions don’t rely on memory, mood, or muscle memory.

If you want to know how to structure it, run it, and make it part of your operations without slowing down what matters, this guide has everything you need to know and take-home trackers. 

Let’s start with nuts and bolts first.

Governance, Risk, Compliance (GRC), Explained

If you’re building in fintech, crypto, or anything that touches money, you can’t afford loose ends.

Not just in code or design but in how your company works behind the scenes. Who’s making decisions? What happens when things break? Whether you’re following the rules that apply to you.

That’s GRC. Governance, Risk, Compliance. It’s more like the spine that keeps everything straight as you grow.

• Governance → Defines who has the authority to make decisions, approve changes, sign contracts, manage funds, and access sensitive systems. Prevents overlap, confusion, and unauthorized actions.
• Risk → It detects threats like fraud, regulatory action, system downtime, and third-party failure and sets up controls to reduce or respond to them.
• Compliance → Tracks which laws, regulations, and standards apply (like RBI, SEBI, FATF, GDPR) and ensures internal processes, documentation, and product features meet those requirements. Includes audit readiness.

GRC is built so your team doesn’t get stuck fixing preventable problems. It’s what lets you move fast without crossing lines you didn’t even know existed.

Without GRC, you fix things when they break. With GRC, you avoid most breaks to begin with. Especially as you grow, it keeps operations stable while everything else scales. It is not a visible feature, but it keeps the engine clean.

How to Implement GRC in an Organization?

You do not need to over-architect the system, but it has to be deliberate. GRC is not something that happens in the background. It is something you set up intentionally. 

Here’s a comprehensive 6-step process to get running.

Step 1: Assign Clear Ownership

GRC does not work unless each component has a responsible owner. 

• Governance is typically handled by senior leadership, such as the COO or board members since it involves decision-making rules, oversight mechanisms, and accountability. 
• Risk should be owned by operations or a product-risk team, depending on the business model. 
• Compliance usually falls under legal or finance, especially in regulated sectors. 

These roles should be fixed, documented, and visible to the entire leadership team.

Step 2: Build a Live Compliance Inventory

The first tactical step is building a compliance inventory. This is a single document that lists every regulatory, legal, and operational requirement your company must follow. It should include authorities like RBI, SEBI, FIU-IND, income tax, and any self-imposed obligations like contractual requirements from partners or investors. 

For each item, document the frequency, responsible owner, due date, and status. This should be reviewed every month and updated as rules evolve.

Look at this tracker, for example:

You can get this tracker template – HERE. Please read the disclaimer carefully before using it.

Step 3: Maintain a Risk Register

This register is a working document that makes your leadership aware of what could go wrong, how prepared you are, and where you need to act next.

In this, create a structured register of risks across the business. Include legal, operational, financial, cybersecurity, vendor, and reputational risks. Each risk entry should include a short description, its likelihood and impact rating, an owner, and the mitigation plan. Refer the example below for better idea.

Grab tracker – HERE (check second sheet). Once again, please read the disclaimer carefully before using it.

If a risk materializes, the register should also track the incident history and recovery steps.

Step 4: Apply Access and Change Controls

Every tool or system that handles data, money, or sensitive workflows must have permission layers. 

No one should get admin access without documented approval, and no access should go unmonitored. 

You should be able to review logs showing who accessed what and when. For workflows that involve financial decisions, refunds, reconciliations, or reporting, enforce a maker-checker system. One person performs, and another person verifies. 

This prevents internal fraud, misuse, and unintentional errors from going unnoticed.

Step 5: Define Protocols for Incidents

You need a basic response plan for the most common categories like: data breaches, financial errors, system outages, regulatory notices, or internal fraud. These plans should define who is responsible, what steps are taken immediately, who is informed, and whether reporting to regulators or partners is required.

This can be stored in a simple internal document. Everyone involved in operations, tech, or compliance should be trained on it once per quarter. The aim is to avoid delays and miscommunication during high-pressure events.

Step 6: Conduct Internal Reviews Quarterly

Set a fixed schedule to review GRC functioning across departments. 

Each quarter, review the compliance tracker, governance logs, risk register, and access controls. 

• Check what was missed, what got delayed, and what changed. 
• Document the gaps. Assign fix owners. 
• Set a 30-day resolution period for anything that affects compliance or customer trust.

These reviews don’t need to be formal audits. But they need to be routine, structured and followed through. GRC stays strong only when it’s maintained, such as in infrastructure.

Best Practices to Implement GRC

A structured GRC system is good. But what keeps it working week after week is operational hygiene. Beyond the core setup, there are specific habits and decisions that make the difference between a GRC program that exists on paper and one that actually holds up under pressure.

Read these four best practices we’ve compiled. 

1. Regulations should live close to your product, not just in legal docs: Maintain a product-to-regulation mapping. For every customer-facing flow (like onboarding, lending, payments), clearly link the governing rule, circular, or internal policy. Update this during every major release cycle. This avoids accidental non-compliance with product updates.
2. Regulatory updates should be treated as version changes, not alerts. Set a fixed monthly slot to review new circulars, enforcement trends, and legal shifts. Assign a team member to summarize what changed, what’s relevant, and what needs action. Tag affected workflows and assign follow-ups.
3. Compliance tasks need to show up where work happens, not in static files: Use task management tools like ClickUp, Notion, or Trello to assign and track compliance activities. Each task must have an owner, deadline, and proof-of-work link. Reminders and missed-task visibility should be built in by default.
4. Vendor risks should be logged and monitored like internal ones: For every third-party tool, partner, or contractor with access to sensitive data or systems, maintain a basic vendor risk profile. Note compliance clauses, data handling risks, and SLA violations. Review high-risk vendors quarterly. Keep contracts easily retrievable.

The tighter your internal processes get, the more your external systems need to keep pace. When workflows like onboarding, Video KYC, and risk checks become routine, they should not rely on manual checks or scattered tools. That’s where APIs step in for consistency and control.

Whether it’s checking if your information is compromised in data breaches or verifying identities during onboarding, these compliance checks are foundational steps in how trust is built, and risk is managed.

Signzy’s suite of APIs is designed to support that shift. Quietly, in the background, where structure matters most.

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