Companies across the globe are moving to the cloud, but financial institutions have typically been slow to make the transition. While moving to the cloud may seem like an innovative change, financial institutions should also consider the best ways to stay compliant and protect consumer data in the process.With changing technology, navigating cloud compliance may be confusing Read More
Despite regulatory requirements continuously evolving, many financial services leaders are still trying to identify what their organization’s implementation best practices should be. Regardless, as customer needs and expectations continue to evolve, the requirements for accurately managing compliance often require workflow modification. To avoid becoming overwhelmed by our nation’s regularly changing regulatory landscape, leaders should implement key best Read More
Legal, finance and HR departments have long-standing, well-defined roles within organizations. But until recently, compliance, has held a more ambiguous role. Some view its function as merely doing the minimum to avoid regulatory fines, while others see it as preparing filings. But over the past five years, we’ve seen compliance take the lead and assume critical roles Read More
You’ve no doubt noticed those privacy updates flooding your inbox and popping up all over the internet as companies announce their intentions to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), implemented in the European Union in mid-2018. Despite steep fines, Gartner estimates that more than half of companies impacted by GDPR still failed to comply as of the end of Read More
When it comes to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, compliance isn’t exactly up there with celebrity news. But it hardly matters, given this: The very nature of financial industry regulation creates a chilling effect on any attempt made to market it. An alphabet soup of regulatory bodies such as the FFIEC, FINRA and the SEC—along with government-enforced legislation Read More
Change is never easy, but sometimes it’s heralded by a welcome event. Banks got important news out of Washington D.C. regarding the partial repeal of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Regulatory Act. Passed as a response to the financial crisis of 2007–2008, Dodd-Frank made changes to the American financial systems that impacted the entire financial ecosystem across the industry. Read More
Compliance costs don’t merely add up, they pile up—and represent one of the unruliest expenses in the financial services sector. Since 2011, compliance costs have increased by 43 percent and now tally on average more than $5 million annually. As if that weren’t enough, here is the bad news: Companies still do not spend enough. To understand why, Read More
In light of evolving threats and stricter regulations, financial institutions are bolstering their anti-money laundering (AML) efforts. As of May 11, covered institutions must implement new beneficial ownership due diligence procedures—and comply with tighter know your customer (KYC) requirements. Additionally, they must establish stricter risk-based procedures to conduct ongoing customer risk profiling and suspicious activity monitoring. Increased Read More
One way to look at banking, data, silos and credit loss is to consider the image offered by Peter Cherpak, Executive Vice President and Partner at Ardmore Banking Advisors in west suburban Philadelphia: “There’s a lot of lost bankers with spreadsheets all doing their own thing, running around, creating trial balances and information that is uncontrolled and Read More
Is Amazon ruining the customer service experience for everyone else? Or is it simply making it better? One thing’s for sure: The regulations and compliance that impede banks from giving customers instantaneous gratification 24/7 simply don’t apply to this e-commerce giant as it conquers the retail landscape like a laughing, high-tech colossus. Think about it. Do your Read More
Todd Kleperis heads an organization that uses unmarked armored vehicles and heavily-armed men (including veterans) to shuttle bundles of marijuana and bags of cash throughout southern California. He doesn’t like to talk about the details of his operation and his drivers avoid federal checkpoints at all costs. Yet what might sound like a criminal endeavor is a Read More
Compliance, so often followed by the rulebook, also needs a playbook: one that gets everyone on board, from the C-suite to the front-line employees who deal with customers. What are the five key ingredients that help organizations create a culture that improves compliance and bolsters the bottom line? Pam Perdue, the Executive Vice President and Chief Regulatory Read More
Many bankers know the significance of crossing the $1 billion asset threshold, whether through organic growth or merger/acquisition. It means a host of new opportunities—but also introduces another issue. That is: meeting the requirements of Section 36 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act (FDICIA). Though increasingly relevant in today’s market, FDICIA rules are hardly new; Read More
Last year, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued several major documents: Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2016-13, and Financial Instruments—Credit Losses (Topic 326): Measurement of Credit Losses on Financial Instruments. That adds up to Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) 326—and many finance professionals, so used to the world of numbers, understandably puzzled over the alphabet soup of letters Read More
BAI’s reporting on banking security issues has found that regardless of the threat and response, fraudsters are rapidly adapting not only to security measures, but also to where and how customers access their accounts. Meanwhile, financial institutions face a delicate balancing act; increase security without scaring away customers. Getting that balance right may represent the industry’s greatest Read More
A multimillion-dollar commercial loan gets approved in 45 minutes. A voice command to your intelligent personal assistant pays your credit card bill. A trade settlement bot reduces the time to reconcile a failed transaction from several minutes to a quarter of a second. Time is indeed money, and here’s the source of the payoff: These examples showcase Read More
Digital workplace transformation impacts every economic sector. And despite Deutsche Bank analysts’ optimistic prediction last year that big banks will put 30 percent of their IT infrastructures in public cloud environments over the next three years, the financial services sector lags in adopting collaboration technologies. It’s conservative by nature and the spectre of FINRA and Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Read More
If regulation is by the book these days, it might as well be from the “Harry Potter” series: the lost volume where brave bankers defend the castle from fire-breathing dragons that grow stronger, fiercer and more adept by the day. Harry recites spells. The dragons spit back and recite Federal Reserve Board Regulation Z, 12 CFR Part Read More
When the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) sued TCF National Bank in January, it charged that the Wayzata, Minn.-based bank was “tricking consumers into costly overdraft services.” According to the CFPB suit, the alleged “trick” involved an application process designed to obscure overdraft fees and make them seem mandatory for new customers opening an account. In fact, Read More
Ask any financial services leader who’s been a scout and they’ll tell you that “Be Prepared” is great advice for organizations as well as life itself. But how do financial services organizations prepare when the future is really unclear? The banking compliance world stands on the verge of what could be huge, unprecedented change. With a new president Read More
