We thought we would ring in the new year with a review of the most popular articles from 2012. Take a look at the top 5 articles and the 5 potent takeaways from each entry.
#5 - CFPB Provides Fair Lending Road Map with 8 Success Elements: In an ongoing attempt to be transparent, the CFPB released their first Supervisory Highlights in November, 2012. Inside their Fall release, they called attention to the common features of well developed compliance programs.
Top Takeaway - While the most appropriate compliance program will vary from financial institution to financial institution based on markets served and product complexities, the CFPB is publicly sharing their observed best practices.
#4 - The 5 Common Tripwires for CRA Exams in 2012: The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) is intended to encourage insured depository institutions to meet the credit needs of the entire community in which they operate. The team at TRUPOINT Partners researched the most common tripwires in 2012 based on published performance ratings.
Top Takeaway - Fair Lending and Reg B violations are now the most frequently cited reason for "Needs to Improve" or "Substantial Noncompliance" performance ratings.
#3 - The Eight Critical Fair Lending Questions (and the one ultimate question): In our daily fair lending compliance consulting, we rely upon several questions that allow us to quickly gauge where a prospect or client currently stands in their fair lending journey. Here are 9 questions you should be prepared to answer.
Top Takeaway - The regulators continue to rely upon data analysis to assess your fair lending activities. Recognizing the data centric approach, financial institutions should evaluate their own lending data and be prepared to tell their story.
#2 - The $21m Fair Lending Price Tag for Loan Officer Discretion: There were several large settlements in 2012 that grabbed the attention of popular press headlines and bankers.
#1 - The 4 Common Charteristics of the Best Compliance Officers: Compliance officers can get overwhelmed with the volume of regulation and the pace of change. Based on our observations of working with hundreds of compliance officers, we compiled the most common characteristics used to combat overwhelm.