Financial institutions have a variety of sources they can turn to to obtain compliance assistance.
First, most financial institutions belong to one or more trade associations and most trade associations have attorneys or other compliance experts on staff that are available to answer questions on compliance issues. Many have compliance helpline numbers and email addresses, compliance tools, compliance newsletters, archived webinars and FAQs available to association members on their websites.
There are a number of very good compliance blogs for both credit unions and banks. Many vendors and audit firms publish compliance newsletters for their clients.
You can also go directly to the regulatory agency. The FDIC, NCUA and CFPB among others all offer the complete text of the regulations and official staff interpretations for the areas for which they have regulatory authority on their websites. The agencies also offer a host of online compliance tools, such as free webinars and FAQs, as well as legal opinion letters and other regulatory alerts and notifications they have published.
AffirmX offers a customized online compliance manual and regulatory alerts for new and changing regulations to its clients along with the assistance of compliance expert that are just a phone call or email away.
