Compliance Blog

As compliance officers, we work to make sure our credit unions stay out of hot water to the best of our ability.  But we don't make money for our credit unions.  We don't generate revenue.  Basically, we eat up payroll, and we kill a lot of trees when we print out regulatory proposals.

How much are we worth?  It is hard to answer that question with a hard number.  But I did read something very interesting the other day in an issue of the Corporate Counsel.  Access the article here.  In short, the author tries to determine whether compliance departments failed during the current market turmoil.  Here's a paragraph:

Is there a new appreciation for this (compliance, ethics and risk management) these days? A reality check comes from Vincent Kaminski, who hopes it's true but isn't so sure. Kaminski, who was a risk analyst at Enron Corp. and now teaches at Rice University, says that traders tell him risk management has been "elevated" since the crash. But many risk management departments are "Potemkin villages," he says. "They were set up to fail." The problems he perceives apply to compliance and ethics as well. Companies often marginalize them, and the departments are given responsibility but no authority. And sometimes they go begging for resources. At Enron, Kaminski's group didn't control its own budget so they had to find a corporate sponsor. And that permitted executives to limit their inquiries.

The article gives some "lessons" for compliance/ethics departments based on what has happened in the past few years.   I consider this to be good stuff.  Very, very good stuff.

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Our lobbyists are pretty good. 

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate passed S. 896, the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009, by a vote of 91-5.  The legislation does a few pretty major things. 

• It would allow up to eight years to repay National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund (NCUSIF) premiums.
• It would increase the National Credit Union Administration’s (NCUA’s) borrowing authority to $6 billion (with emergency authority to $30 billion)
• It would create a temporary corporate credit union stabilization fund and provide credit unions seven years to pay off the fund. 
• In addition, it would remove the December 31, 2009 sunset for increased deposit insurance coverage of $250,000 and extend it to the end of 2013.

(Whew - did you get all that?) The action now heads to the House.  If you want to read more, NAFCU put together a very nice news story here.