Exercise In Futility

I spent three days last month in Washington, DC listening to banking experts, government officials, and regulators talking about compliance and regulations. If it were not for the bankers involved, the three days would have been an informational desert.

Bankers and banking attorneys were very open and giving, sharing knowledge and providing explanations of complex rules and policies with which we have to deal with every day. They held the basic premise on which we based this newsletter and the BankersOnline Web page - bankers helping bankers. The compliance officers in attendance were also open and gregarious - challenging, questioning, clarifying, sharing - competition was absent from all the sessions and encounters. Most of the sessions were productive, informational, and educational. Of particular interest was a general session on Common Violations where many problems were addressed and solutions offered by compliance expert, Lucy Griffin, Editor of Compliance Action.

Then the regulators came on.

All of the major players were there for the segment by the regulators - SEC, FDIC, OCC, OTS, FED - the only one missing was a spokesman from NCUA. Each of the agency representatives gave a little opening statement, and then they fielded questions from the audience. It was an interesting exercise. Every agency representative responded to each and every question. And after an hour, you realized no questions had actually been answered at all! It seemed they had talked for an hour - and not said anything.

The consensus of opinion was that even though the questions were pointed and specific, the regulators representing the agencies were not familiar enough with what goes on "in the trenches" to be able to give good answers. Opinions (guesses) on what the change of power in the Senate might bring brought a lengthy discourse from each speaker, but questions on CRA and privacy got short shrift.

This seems to happen every time the regulators talk to the bankers. It would help compliance officers if they could get answers from the agencies. But experienced compliance officers know their best answers come from a different source.

...from other compliance officers.

Copyright © 2001 Bankers' Hotline. Originally appeared in Bankers' Hotline, Vol. 11, No. 6, 7/01