Conveniently Retain Report Copies

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Strunk’s hosted ODP Manager solution allows you to export and save your institution’s reports as Excel or PDF files. In addition to data from your most recent extract file, you are also able to access reports from your most recent seven As of Dates.

If you typically refer back to past reports for further analysis as you have time available, ODP Manager can streamline your report retention process. Instead of manually exporting and saving copies of reports, Strunk can set up your reports to be automatically archived after each import.

Once Strunk has created your report archive with your requested reports, PDFs are automatically saved within ODP Manager after each import of your daily extract file. Archived reports are easily located within a special Archived Reports section and are organized by As of Date.

Don’t worry about locating past reports – let Strunk manage your ODP Manager report archive! Please contact Strunk Support at support@strunkaccess.com with any questions or to find out more about using this feature.

Strunk at the ABA’s Virtual Conference for Community Bankers 2021

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For the first time, Strunk attended the ABA’s annual Conference for Community Bankers virtually. During the virtual event we hosted a virtual booth, met with many familiar and new faces via Zoom meetings and attended virtual sessions. While a bit different than being together, it remains one of the most anticipated events of the year and we made the most of the connections with bankers and enjoyed seeing everyone.

We welcomed the opportunity to discuss with attendees the latest features offered by our Governance, Risk Management and Compliance (GRC) software Risk Manager, which includes six GRC tools – Risk Assessor, Policy Manager, Controls Manager, Skills Manager, Issues Manager and Vendor Manager. Strunk’s Overdraft Program is always a hot topic of conversation and we were glad to discuss our approach with long-time clients and potential clients.

Attendees had the opportunity to hear from keynote speaker, former NBA star Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson in his session ‘The Power of Magic’. On top of his athletic notoriety, Magic is a driven and successful entrepreneur who shared what it takes to truly make an impact.

Another interesting session was hosted by Ron Shevlin of Cornerstone Advisors on the five forces shaping the banking industry today. He detailed how challenger banks, big tech, embedded finance, artificial intelligence, and cryptocurrency are affecting our banks and provided areas of focus for community FIs.

Congratulations to the winner of Strunk’s giveaway, a $100 gift card to Amazon – Mayra Rinaldi of Columbia Bank!

We hope to see you all in person next year and to once again host the conference t-shirt station. Until then, stay well.

Are you tired of doing Risk Assessments?

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We hear comments from community bankers across the country that they don’t like doing risk assessments and that they are time consuming. Risk Assessments generally come in the form of Excel Spreadsheets or Word documents. Often times they are done in silos where each functional area of the bank does their regulatory required risk assessment and periodically reports them to the bank’s board for review/approval.

Many banks do risk assessments for the regulators which is typically the wrong approach, in Strunk’s opinion. Risk assessments are done annually for those required by regulations and sometimes others are done two weeks before the regulators walk in. Risk Assessments should be designed to give senior management, board and ownership a snapshot of what risks your bank faces and what has been done to mitigate those risks. High risks aren’t bad; they just need to be managed.

Regulatory scrutiny of BSA/AML, ACH, Fair Lending, Loan Concentrations, Cybersecurity, Information Technology and other areas of the bank have caused financial institutions to spend more time and money focusing on the risks the bank faces. Outsourcing some of these functions to vendors is an expensive way to manage the risk assessment process and certainly unnecessary. Strunk’s GRC (Governance, Risk Management and Compliance) solution makes the risk assessment process easy to do and it consolidates all areas of risk the bank faces into one report.

Bank examiners often tell the community bank that they are coming out for the annual exam six weeks to two months prior to actually showing up. Generally, they ask the bank to send an extensive amount of information prior to coming onsite. This gives the regulator time to form their opinion on what risks the bank faces before arriving at the bank.

Strunk’s solution lets the bank tell their story rather than have the regulator tell the bank’s story to them. Comprehensive risk assessments are made easy with Strunk’s Risk Assessor Solution https://strunkaccess.com/risk-assessor/.

New Look & Feel: ODP Manager v2

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This month’s Strunk Access release introduces an all new look and feel for current ODP Manager clients. In an effort to continuously utilize the latest technology, Strunk stays on top of monthly updates that not only improve feature functionality but also application performance.

ODP Manager v2 consolidates Collection Letters, Custom Letters, and Ad Hoc Form Letters into a single menu option. When users click on Letters in the purple menu bar, they will now select either Collection Letters, Custom Letters, or Ad Hoc Form Letters from the menu. It is easier than ever before to generate letters once the proper menu item is chosen. Clients can also print a sample letter from the generation screen as needed.

These letter types can be used when creating templates to organize the different kinds of letters a client uses. Type Collection should be used for standard collection letters, type Custom will be chosen for all types of consumer communications and type Ad Hoc Form for letter types that need to be sent on demand.

Strunk CEO Dan Roderick says “I want clients to be able to stay on top of their programs and focus on what’s important to their organization. Strunk is committed to ensuring our applications are easy-to-use and continuously updated, to take that additional burden off their shoulders.”

ODP Manager is the most powerful tool available to help financial institutions get the most benefit out of their overdraft programs and remain in full compliance with the law. The application is provided as a cloud-hosted application, taking full advantage of the latest software developments and eliminating the need for users to maintain a separate application in their own network environment.

Help Your Customers Opt In for Regulation E Online

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ODP Manager includes letter templates that allow your customers the opportunity to opt in for Regulation E so they can authorize Overdraft Privilege service for ATM withdrawals and everyday debit card purchases. Did you know that ODP Manager can also help you offer your customers the option to opt in on your website?

Strunk can create a Reg E opt in form and Reg E opt out form that mirrors the content in your ODP Manager letters. You would then add links to these forms to your website.

When your customer submits the Consent Form for Overdraft Services or the Consent to Opt-Out, the opt in or opt out request is tracked in ODP Manager. The customer also is emailed a confirmation of their Reg E submission. Periodically, you review the new customer responses in ODP Manager and generate a list of the accounts that need the Reg E election updated. You perform the appropriate maintenance in your core software – updating the account record to either opt in or opt out the customer’s requested account. The ODP Manager software always shows you the most recent responses that you have not yet reviewed. The list of submissions is retained so you can look up past responses.

Let ODP Manager expand your options to allow your customers to choose Overdraft Privilege coverage for ATM and everyday debit card transactions. Please contact Strunk Support at support@strunkaccess.com with any questions or to find out more about using this feature.

Ensuring Employee Compliance With Policies and Procedures

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Does your financial institution do annual employee reviews of compliance with your policies and procedures? If not you should. Training employees on specific areas of the bank is crucial to running a successful company and testing for product knowledge is critical to customer service.

All financial institutions have policies that are board approved on an annual basis and a set of procedures that are senior management approved. The question is do your employees know what the policies and procedure say and do they follow them?

In the middle of the 1980’s, the bank I worked at had a product knowledge contest with the winner receiving a trip to Las Vegas. There were three person teams and the questions came from all areas of the bank. So it was important to have a lending person, a retail person and an operations person on each team to have the correct answers. Needless to say, our team won.

Today, we don’t have product or policy knowledge contests but that doesn’t mean you can’t test your employees for knowledge of these. Strunk’s Skills Manager solution allows financial institutions to train your employees on products, procedures or policies. Then through the solution you can test their knowledge based on the training. Test results for each employee funnel up to one person responsible for the training. Many institutions use this for their security or ethics policy requiring their employees to take a test on an annual basis. Could Skills Manager help your financial institution?

Charge Off Items and Recoveries

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ODP Manager includes the letters that you need to notify customers that their account has been closed and charged off due to unpaid and outstanding overdrafts or due to a default on a Fresh Start Loan for outstanding overdrafts. Did you know that with Strunk’s most recent software releases, ODP Manager now includes tools that may help you manage your charge off and recovery process after the account has been closed?

At the account level, you can create a charge off item to track the charged off principal and fees. Users are able to add relevant notes and any updates will be logged. As recoveries are made, the recovery can be entered in ODP Manager and will reduce the overall balance tracked.

By default, users will view the Charge Off Items for the last year. If needed, users can select a different timeframe by specifying a start date and an end date. For reporting purposes, the summary of the Charge Off Items can be exported as a PDF.

Please contact Strunk Support at support@strunkaccess.com with any questions or to find out more about using this feature.

Where has Financial Institution Service Charge Income Gone?

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Service Charge income at banks and credit unions across the country is down around 20% for the first nine months of 2020 and there are several reasons why. First, many consumers received stimulus payments from the Federal Government in the second quarter to help spur the economy during the pandemic which has reduced overdraft fees. Second, FIs have increased waives and refunds of service charges to help their consumer checking accountholders. Lastly, debit card interchange has been lower as consumers are spending less during the Covid-19 crisis.

In many cases fee income from the SBA PPP loan program and mortgage originations have help offset the lower service charge income which has been a plus for community FIs. Now bankers will wait and see what losses they might face in their loan portfolio for small businesses that just can’t make it. Bankers are facing trying times and predicting how 2021 will play out is difficult.

Strunk’s Overdraft Privilege and Value Checking programs have been two of the best fee income producers our industry has ever seen. Financial institutions are doing budgeting for 2021 and now may be the time to explore how our programs have helped nearly one third of all banks in the U.S. Both Overdraft Privilege and Value Checking enhance customer service and increase fee income at the same time. Give your customers a choice on how they want their account handled and your bank will reap the benefits just like 1,800 banks across the country have.

Excessive Use Notification Options

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FDIC regulated institutions are expected to give customers who overdraw their accounts on more than six occasions where a fee is charged in a rolling twelve-month period a reasonable opportunity to choose a less costly alternative and decide whether to continue with fee-based overdraft coverage. Non-FDIC regulated institutions also can choose to communicate alternatives to ODP to their customers.

ODP Manager is able to assist you with sending these letters advising your customers of the alternatives to Overdraft Privilege.

There are two options to use these letters. One option is to update your ODP Manager import file to add a field from your core that indicates when the account has qualified by exceeding the threshold. Alternatively, if you are able to identify the appropriate accounts using an existing core report or other method, you can generate the letter as needed as an Ad Hoc letter.

By using ODP Manager as part of your Excessive Use notification process, you can benefit from the software’s letter tracking and retention.

Please contact Strunk Support at support@strunkaccess.com to find out more about implementing or using this feature.

The Importance of Understanding your Reg. E Opt-In Form

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In 2010 there were changes to the laws and regulations for financial institutions regarding overdraft privilege programs.  Certain Regulation E rules took effect July 1, 2010.  Under these rules, financial institutions must provide notice and reasonable opportunity for customers to opt-in to the payment of automated teller machine (ATM) and one-time point-of-sale (POS) overdrafts provided in exchange for a fee.

Even though this regulation is over 10 years old, there are still misunderstandings from financial institutions regarding the way to present the Reg. E options to consumers, and also the way financial institutions should disclose to their consumers.  Not disclosing Reg. E opt-in correctly to your customers/members could be costly to your institution and also hurt the institutions reputation.  Recently a Bank was hit with $122 million in restitution and penalties to resolve claims that it charged U.S. consumers fees without consent.  The CFPB stated that in some cases the bank required new customers to sign its overdraft notice with the ‘enrolled’ option pre-checked without mentioning the Reg. E service to the consumer.  In other cases the CFPB found that new customers were enrolled in Reg. E without requesting the customer’s oral enrollment decision.

Reg. E opt-in disclosures are highly sensitive matters with regulators and strict compliance is required.  Strunk is the leader in overdraft privilege services and we have a great understanding on how to establish and implement policies and procedures that align with the laws and regulations around Reg. E opt-in. If you have any questions regarding your disclosures or your procedures, reach out to Strunk so we can assist you.

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.