Banking

“Regulation is killing community banks.” Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin

In March, regulators announced that they would launch an effort to ease capital rules for smaller institutions. In June, a Treasury report recognized, “community financial institutions’ business models have come under pressure from added compliance costs from new regulations.” It urged regulators to “explore exempting community banks from the risk-based capital regime implementing the Basel III standards.” In the most recent step, which happened on August 22, U.S. bank regulatory agencies put forth a proposal to delay the implementation period for stricter capital rules for smaller banks while they review ways to simplify requirements.

Any financial institution engaged in mortgage lending has a responsibility to make sure its employees are aware of the current status of lending discrimination laws. The Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) office of HUD has established a set of guidelines to help lenders understand fair lending and the law that governs it, how fair housing rights are protected under the federal Fair Housing Act, and how to spot signs of a violation.

Saturday (April 29) marks the 100^th day of the Trump Presidency. The benchmark has historically been used to review promises made and kept, as well as where progress has occurred and where it is yet to happen. For community banks and the small businesses and individuals they support, four markers are of particular importance—small business lending, mortgage rates, interest rate risk, and regulations. Let’s look at all four to get a sense of where the country is, and where we may be headed in the second half of 2017.

FASB issued the Accounting Standards Update (ASU) No. 2016-09, Compensation—Stock Compensation (Topic 718): Improvements to Employee Share-Based Payment Accounting in March 2016. The new update takes effect for public business entities for annual periods beginning after December 15, 2016, and interim periods within those annual periods. For private entities, the amendments take effect for annual periods beginning after December 15, 2017, and interim periods within annual periods beginning after December 15, 2018. Early adoption will be permitted in any interim or annual period, with any adjustments reflected as of the beginning of the fiscal year of adoption.

You have gotten your degree and settled in your career, now what? For many young adults, starting a family could be on the top of their priority list. So it’s pretty safe to assume that finding a house is on the list as well. As is the case with the job market and economy as a whole, Millennials are the largest – and potentially the most lucrative – segment in the housing market. In fact, this group has a collective spending power that exceeds a trillion dollars.[1]

As public banks and companies continue to grow, whether through mergers and acquisitions or organically, it’s not unusual for them to forget about important regulations.

In this blog, we wanted to focus on the requirements of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that require companies to provide an annual report on internal controls for their fiscal year end.[1] In particular, these internal control report requirements impact accelerated and large accelerated filers.[2]

Banks are like many other organizations in that they are adept at producing data yet often fall short on interpreting and applying its value. But for banks in particular, analytics are incredibly important. The ability to read and interpret collected intelligence is critical to a sound internal audit (IA) function. 

College graduation is one of the biggest milestones in life. You walk across the stage and into the next phase of life. You join the workforce, find a home, and figure out how to make, spend and save money. Today’s college graduates represent one of the largest generational demographics in history. There are more than 92 million Millennials in the US, and they represent an enormous opportunity for banks that are willing to really look at the needs of this generation. [1]