As the nation's leading compliance firm, ABS continually provides clients with information on the latest news and emerging trends in areas of
compliance and regulatory law that affect financial institutions.
Click below for helpful compliance guidance on hot issues, summaries of the latest legal and legislative developments and pointers to valuable
risk management concerns.
From the OTS to the OCC - Are You Ready?
With CompliancePro® from American Bank Systems Your Answer is YES!
As a result of the Dodd-Frank Act, which became law in 2010, all OTS thrift institutions will come under the oversight of the OCC on July 21, 2011.
You may be unclear as to some of the differences between these two regulators. Below are some of the questions you should be asking yourself to assess your state of preparedness for this change,
along with answers that we believe you should consider.
Should we expect a higher level of scrutiny according to OCC examination philosophy?
Maintaining satisfactory or better compliance examination ratings is essential to financial institution stability, especially in our current and expanding regulatory culture.
The OCC has a reputation of being more assertive and intense than the OTS. They place a lot of weight on the institution’s internal compliance audits with emphasis also on written policies and procedures,
and training. Comparatively, the OCC performs very little transactional testing, especially if they have confidence in the institution’s compliance risk management system and controls.
Whereas the OTS may look at thirty loans during an examination, the OCC may look at as few as five. However, if deficiencies are discovered, the OCC will typically provide lower examination ratings.
CompliancePro® is a time tested and proven tool to strengthen regulatory compliance programs, and ready financial institutions for examination preparedness.
Are we prepared to meet the OCC’s supervisory expectations for compliance risk management?
The OCC employs a risk-based supervisory philosophy focused on evaluating risk, identifying material and emerging problems, and ensuring that individual institutions take corrective action before
problems compromise their safety and soundness. Institutions are expected to have a compliance risk management system which assesses risk by products/services offered and which monitors and manages
compliance risk by performing regular monitoring between examinations.
CompliancePro® can help you meet these expectations with its risk assessment and monitoring and issue management capabilities which provide for regular and consistent review
and testing for all consumer regulated activity across lines of business, bank products and regulation.
Will our risk assessment process meet the standards of the OCC?
Simply speaking, the OCC’s focus on risk management is huge. This is their starting point for examinations.
Whatever policies, procedures, training, or controls you have in place; it has to follow the risk assessment.
While regulatory consumer compliance risk processes in large institutions are relatively well established,
some small and medium sized institutions may need to improve upon their risk assessments to satisfy the OCC.
If your current risk process is informal, rudimentary and undocumented, the CompliancePro® Risk Module is what you need to prepare a sound risk assessment process with our
Inherent Risk and Risk Mitigation Analysis functionality, reporting and dashboard capability.
CompliancePro® was designed with the knowledge of bankers, for bankers, and we at American Bank Systems have been serving the financial
industry since 1969. As a leader in the compliance field for financial institutions, our compliance and technology solutions are focused to achieve superior performance for a growing number of
clients across America. There is no time to waste! Let us help you as you prepare for this historic transition. Contact us today for more information and a demo of CompliancePro®.