WASHINGTON (CN) - Federal financial regulators agreed to coordinate their supervision of insured depository institutions, such as banks, with more than $10 billion in assets.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency are required by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to coordinate their efforts to reduce the regulatory burden placed on institutions by multiple supervisory agencies.
The CFPB was created by Dodd-Frank to police consumer financial services, such as credit cards and mortgages offered by banks, credit unions and other financial companies. It is charged to do this through consumer education, regulatory enforcement and publishing reports on practices in the consumer financial services market.
The regulators will schedule their regularly occurring examinations to coincide so institutions can provide all of the data needed by the regulators at one time rather than in successive, duplicative sessions.
Coordinating their examinations does not mean the exams will be conducted jointly, the memorandum announcing the coordination stressed.
The agencies also committed to sharing data related to compliance with federal consumer financial laws, risk management programs and activities such as underwriting, sales, marketing, servicing and collections, as they related to consumer financial products.
They agreed to provide each other with draft reports on their respective examinations before publication and take into consideration comments made by the other agency before taking any supervisory action stemming from the examination.
Institutions can opt-out of simultaneous examinations by the agencies by filing an opt-out request that will remain in effect until the next regularly scheduled examination cycle.
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