In the final phase of its multiyear examination modernization project, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council today released best practices for requesting examination information from supervised entities, as well as a common authentication solution for secure access to FFIEC members’ supervision systems.
The overall project objective was to identify and assess improvements to the effectiveness, efficiency and quality of examination processes with regard to community financial institutions and to minimize regulatory burden. In the most recent phase, FFIEC members addressed the feedback provided by supervised entities regarding examination requests and authentication requirements for FFIEC members’ supervision systems.
The best practices identified for requesting examination information from financial institutions were: information requests should be risk-focused and relevant to the examination; supervised institutions should be given sufficient time to produce new or additional requested information; examiners should coordinate information requests among the exam team; requests should be made through the institution’s designated exam point-of-contact; and requests should be clearly articulated in writing.
FFIEC noted that common authentication will allow member agencies and supervised institutions to securely authenticate to supervision systems, while eliminating the need for multiple credentials to access regulator systems.
