I am not terribly skilled in the art form known as golf. Though I have a set of clubs, and I do swing them every now and then, clearly, I could not be considered a Golfer with a capital G.
That said, a friend of mine tipped me onto a new-to-me golf phenomenon that looks to be fun even for us golfers with a lower-case g. It’s called TopGolf (don’t worry; this is not a TopGolf product endorsement). TopGolf is like a cross between golf and bowling, where players tee off in a multi-bay, multi-level driving range and try to land their balls in targets that range from 20 yards away to some 200 yards away. Chips inside the balls measure distance to the various targets and award points accordingly. Players don’t have to walk anywhere; they just aim for another target. Refreshments are never more than an arm’s length away. What could be better than that?
But imagine if golf had no holes, no targets, nothing to shoot toward whatsoever. Players just go out there and swing the club, hit the ball, and wherever it goes is fine. That could be briefly entertaining, but ultimately pointless. You could make up games of how far you could hit the ball, but eventually only the exceedingly strong would excel at that game. No, golf works because of the holes.
Now, imagine if there were no regulatory compliance examinations. I know, I know; you’ve pondered (and perhaps yearned for) that utopia many times, but I would assert that there is great value to such events. Examinations give us meaningful feedback on our performance and efforts, just like a shank on a par 3 tells us that we need to adjust our swing.
A large contributing factor in my golf handicap is that I’m not golfing all that often. One thing I’ve observed from my golf dearth is that, not surprisingly, practice matters. If you want to achieve success in something as demanding as golf, you need regular devotion to your craft. The same holds true for compliance and the accompanying examinations. Indeed, I would submit that the problem with exams is not that they happen, but it’s that they don’t happen nearly frequently enough.
I hope I didn’t cause you to just spit your coffee out, but I stand by that statement. Exams, just like important golf games, are more successful with interim practice—or interim reviews. At AffirmX, our approach was developed to spread out the exam process like a pro golfer would be regularly hitting the links.
The frequent reviews delivered via AffirmX’s patented platform, with its continuous scoring, allow financial institutions to make a series of smaller, easier course adjustments before the regulatory examinations occur.
What’s more, our continuous scoring makes compliance almost as fun as TopGolf. Well, perhaps that’s a bit of a stretch, but I would submit that you would find the experience of frequent smaller visits and compliance reviews between compliance examinations to be of substantial benefit to your institution’s compliance program.
For more information on AffirmX’s compliance platform for financial institutions, watch the video or contact Alberto Gamez at alberto.gamez@affirmx.com.
