A citation in a bid is a promise that the underlying source exists and says what the response claims it says. In an unregulated sector that promise is enough. In financial services it is not.
The regulator's expectation, whether it is stated in every thematic review or not, is that a claim in a submission traces back to a named human of appropriate seniority who has signed the underlying evidence. The signature is not a courtesy. It is the mechanism that makes the claim testable.
Three consequences
An unsigned source cannot be cited in a final response. This is a hard rule, not a preference. The drafting engine should refuse to render a final citation whose underlying source has not been signed. The refusal is not a nag. It is a control, and a control that fails open is not a control.
The signatory's seniority has to match the claim. A claim about model risk cannot be signed by a model developer. It has to be signed by a signatory of the seniority the firm's Senior Managers and Certification Regime map assigns to model risk. The mapping is what the regulator will ask for on a thematic review, and the response should be able to produce it without post-hoc reconstruction.
The signature record has to survive a change of personnel. A signatory who has left the firm is not a signatory who can defend the claim. The evidence library should surface signatory currency as a first-class attribute, and the drafting engine should refuse a citation whose signatory is no longer with the firm without a countersignature from the current holder of that responsibility.
None of this is exotic. All of it is what a well-run financial services firm already does for its regulatory returns. The governed advantage on financial services bids is applying the same discipline to submissions that the firm already applies to regulatory reporting.
Strategist so-what
Claim. In financial services a citation without a current, appropriately senior signatory is not evidence.
Implication. Treat submissions with the same signing discipline as regulatory returns and the evidence trail passes scrutiny without a reconstruction exercise.