New & Emerging Compliance Issues
By David Dickinson
This is my last installment of what I learned at the ABA's Regulatory Compliance Conference in June. I hope my notes have provoked some thoughts and helped you manage compliance at your bank. This last session dealt with how Compliance Officers handle keeping up with the barrage of compliance issues, new proposals, final regulations, and more. Also, it touched on developing procedures for new requirements. Here are my notes:
New issues: Is it a Proposal, final, Guidance, FAQ? You don't have to respond to all of these (proposals) or take them all the same (final rule vs. FAQ/Guidance).
Can you leverage off consultants/vendors (BOL, ABA, Compliance Headquarters, etc.)? Call your vendors and ask them what they know and how they can help your bank.
Compliance personnel should not develop procedures. Take the Compliance Officer expertise of requirements and the expertise of the business lines to develop procedures together.
- The Compliance Officer doesn't have the knowledge or technical expertise to tell Senior Loan Officers how to do their job!
- If the bank gets "lost", whose fault is it? Who's responsible?
- Foster relationships to help them comply. The Compliance Officer doesn't do the compliance. You are their ally.
Don't cry wolf every time a new requirement is proposed.
- The Compliance Officer should give regulatory updates to Sr. Mgt / BOD:
- Finals, FAQs, Guidance
- Maybe mention proposals but only if you feel they are significant or going to be finalized.
- This gives them a heads up that you/they will need additional resources.
Access the implication of new requirements:
One presenter indicated she copies and pastes relevant parts of new requirements (including definitions) into a Word document. She then inserts comments about what parts apply to her bank, which ones don't, feedback from departments, etc.
- - She provides this to the regulators when they come.
- - This shows the bank has thought through new issues, how it impacts the bank, what doesn't apply, etc.
- - This acts like a risk assessment (thinking through the issues) which is what most of the requirements are asking for.
When new requirements are issued, don't send an email out to people and scare your personnel ("this goes into affect in 6 months and we have to do it"). Rather send an email to the key people that need to know and ask them for a face to face meeting. You can give them a short synopsis "I need 1 hour of your time to discuss the new ID Theft requirements". Attach the Word summary (discussed above) so they can be prepared for the meeting.