November 25, 2020

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a marked shift in how we work and use technology to stay connected and execute business. Many institutions are managing remote workforces while navigating the pandemic’s ongoing effects, leading to various challenges, including addressing cybersecurity threats.

As we approach the end of 2020, institutions that were required to adopt the current expected credit loss (CECL) accounting standard are wrapping up their adoption year. Many of these institutions elected to use more complex methodologies than what the Financial Accounting Standards Board requires for community institutions. For community institutions yet to adopt CECL, bear in mind that complexity is not necessarily the better or right choice.

Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) scams continue to be a costly and challenging issue for financial institutions. Wire transfer fraud can easily reach millions of dollars. With advancements in technology, such as online databases for county clerk records, online banking and online title searching, financial institutions commonly use data to verify that customer identity for wire transactions is routinely and easily comprised.

With the recent chain of events across the country, there is a lot of talk about racial tension, the economy and immigration. We have work to do in each of these areas, and we can’t afford to rely on political leaders to do the job for us — we all play a role. All three issues touch our industry, so we have to push forward to do our part in solving them.

Keeping your financial institution safe is critical to your success. Without the right security measures and procedures in place, your financial institution can be at risk of cyberattacks, embezzlement and more.

For many financial institutions scrambling to assist small businesses by participating in the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), implementing new technology has been the only possible way to handle the crush of PPP applicants and paperwork. Between the numbers of applicants, the strong demand for limited funds and the restrictions on face-to-face transactions, financial institutions without automation were quickly overwhelmed.

Commercial loan workouts seem like old news, but the COVID-19 crisis and its aftermath are likely to result in old news becoming news again.

Digital banking is rapidly becoming the main channel through which many customers interact with their financial institutions.

Debt selling has been done by thousands of banks, credit unions, auto lenders, and commercial lenders over the years. The concept is simple: take your charged-off loans from the last four years (you know; the accounts that don’t pay or respond to your calls anymore), put them in an Excel Spreadsheet, and get funds back into your bank within 3-5 business days. Sounds easy enough, right?

In response to the coronavirus’s potential economic effects, the OCC, FRB and FDIC (“the agencies”) published an interim final rule on March 20, 2020, proposing to revise the definition of eligible retained income. On March 26, 2020, the FRB published an interim final rule which revised the definition of eligible retained income for institutions subject to the FRB’s total loss-absorbing (TLAC) rule.