In today’s financial environment, having access to emergency funds is more crucial than ever. Many individuals are struggling to cover everyday expenses, and overdraft privilege can offer reassurance to customers who require fast access to short-term funds. Consumers, especially those who use overdraft services, continue to show a strong understanding of overdrafts and the options […]
How does your financial institution keep track of internal and external audit findings, customer complaints, and comments from regulators that require corrective action? Many financial institutions use Excel spreadsheets to monitor these outstanding issues. It’s no surprise that financial institutions rely on Excel for these tasks, as it remains one of the most widely used […]
A vendor is a company or individual that supplies a product or service to your organization, irrespective of a formal contract. For financial institutions, some vendors may include technology partners, banking equipment providers, financial partners, legal and professional services, and office supplies vendors. Financial institutions sometimes work with hundreds of relationships with third-party vendors that […]
What is vendor monitoring, and why is it important to the vendor management process? Vendor monitoring, also known as ongoing monitoring, involves overseeing the vendor’s performance to determine if the vendor is performing as required by the service levels and contract terms. The Third Party Risk Management Guidance states that ongoing monitoring enables a banking […]
Managing issues can be a cumbersome task for financial institutions, whether it’s tracking incidents, customer complaints, or audit and exam findings. The issue management process involves maintaining an issue log with action items, due dates, and responsible team members, often blurring the lines between issue management and project management. Standardizing your financial institution’s issue management […]
Legislators are continuing to push for changes in overdraft fees, which they describe as unnecessary and even predatory. They have dubbed these fees as “junk fees.” We know that overdraft fees are not “junk fees,” but rather a convenience for informed consumers. The American Bankers Association (ABA) has pushed back, stating, ‘The administration’s latest attempt […]
In mid-January of this year, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) proposed a new rule to restrict overdraft fees charged by very large financial institutions (Those with assets over $10B). View the PDF of the Proposed Rule with Request for Comment here: https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_overdraft-credit-very-large-financial-institutions_proposed-rule_2024-01.pdf When the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System first adopted […]
Financial institutions regulated by the OCC, FDIC, and Federal Reserve must conduct due diligence on third-party relationships per the Interagency Guidance on Third-Party Relationships: Risk Management. Regulators expect financial institutions to review vendor documents thoroughly rather than just glance over them. Organizing all your vendor management in a secure, web-hosted database is the first place […]
The Interagency Guidance of Third Party Risk Management states that an effective third-party risk management life cycle consists of planning, due diligence and third-party selection, contract negotiation, ongoing monitoring, and termination phase. One of the most critical aspects of the third-party life cycle is the contract negotiation phase. It is essential to evaluate a vendor’s contract with […]
Regulators take compliance with vendor management regulations seriously due to the critical role third-party vendors play in delivering products and services. Using third-party services can increase the risk of a banking organization, but this does not mean that the organization can neglect its responsibility to perform all activities in a safe and sound manner. It […]
An independent certified public accountant has examined Strunk’s operations and found them to be in compliance with the AICPA’s Trust Service Principles. It was determined that Strunk meets the Security, Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, and Privacy criteria for SOC 2 established by the AICPA.
