Staying compliant with regulations is paramount to institutions and a top priority for C-suite executives. Financial institutions, in particular, are frequently under regulatory scrutiny from their jurisdictional regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and Federal Reserve Board (FRB) in the U.S. These regulators continue to reinforce core banking governance, risk management, capital adequacy and liquidity management regulations (i.e., Dodd-Frank) implemented in the wake of the global financial crisis in 2008.
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Change Standards as a Competitive Advantage: Beyond the Regulatory Mandate
As the world of cryptocurrency and SPACs steal the headlines, and the financial services industry grapples with the new Risk-Free Rates replacing LIBOR, topics such as change standards struggle to compete for the limelight. Change standards are policies that provide the foundations for effective organizational change management.
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2021 Brings Widespread Adoption of Digital Payment Solutions
Since March 2020, banks moved quickly to embrace digital solutions to increase the physical/health safety of purchasing transactions. This transition was overwhelmingly accepted and adopted by consumers. In the last year, 78% of U.S. consumers reported that personal health safety was the driving factor in determining how they paid for goods and services.[1] This proliferation of new solutions and products in this environment, driven by customers demand, seemingly redesigned the payments sector overnight.
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Managing Cyber Risk with a Practical Approach to Investment and Implementation
Despite the ongoing economic impact of the pandemic and the consequent impact on many company’s budgets, cybersecurity budgets continue to grow. While the increase in investment may buck the overall trend in corporate spending, it’s a necessary response to a threat that escalates seemingly by the day. Will the latest round of investments to enhance cybersecurity be enough to keep up with 2020’s leap forward in both digital transformation and cybercrime?
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Building Regulatory Resilience: A Deeper Look into Consent Orders & MRAs
The sheer mention of the term "Consent Order’ fills banking executives and board members of financial institutions with anxiety and regret. Consent Orders (CO) are binding legal orders issued by financial regulators that force receiving institutions to formally address significant violations of regulatory standards. Severe Enforcement Actions (EAs), such as COs against medium and large US institutions were a rarity prior to the onset of the financial crisis starting in 2008. This changed in the aftermath of the financial crisis when regulators levied large numbers of EAs against major banks.
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Making Sense of Complex Change
Large-scale digital transformation for financial institutions can be a challenging and complex journey, but the rewards are often worth reaping. Knowing where and how to begin can be overwhelming but having the patience to step back and devise a clearly defined strategy will set your firm up for success on its transformation journey. In just the last year we’ve seen how the impact of COVID-19 has further accelerated the willingness for companies to re-assess the existing capabilities of their business and organizational models against the fast-paced change of the industry's increasingly complex landscape.
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