The connected credit union 3: Three ways to crush compliance concerns

Whether it’s regulatory developments such as the Dodd-Frank Act or seeking new ways to reach new members, technology is a key compliance tool. But do you need to make yet another investment in yet another system?

Not if you have a comprehensive enterprise content management (ECM) solution in house.

In the first two parts of this series, we examined how ECM, or document management, revolutionizes human resources and accounting departments. Now let’s see how this technology eases your compliance woes and helps your credit union become entirely connected – and more efficient.

Through defined user groups and rights, ECM ensures only appropriate users have access to information. So you don’t have to worry about employees accessing their coworkers’ financial records at your credit union. This increases document security without limiting access.

But that’s just the beginning; here are three more ways how ECM can be used as a compliance tool:

1. Auditability

Every time a user accesses, views, edits or acts on a document, ECM automatically records the action. It automatically creates audit logs that managers can easily view. These logs are even available to external auditors to save you billable hours and resources.

So you don’t need to spend time preparing for audits. No more dusty files to search through.

Instead, by electronically capturing all documents and records, you can simply give auditors limited access to your ECM solution. You let auditors search for and find what they need themselves.

2. Records management and retention

Complementing auditability is ECM’s records management, giving you the ability to control and set retention schedules for documentation. That helps with audits or future audits that will happen, making sure you can give auditors easy access to necessary documents while automatically purging documents that should be destroyed.

Regardless of what state your organization is located in or what the U.S. government requirements are, or just different individual institutional requirements, you are able to set the proper retention requirements for your documents.

To me, that goes hand-in-hand with audit trails. Not only does this combination make preparation for audits easy, it gives you the ability to proactively comply with evolving regulations.

3. Transparency

Today’s credit unions are looking for technology solutions that bring transparency to their business and transactions.

With ECM, you can set workflow notifications that automatically inform employees when a document is due for an update or whether it no longer complies with a specific regulation.

Or, if it is missing information, you can set up notifications so they are automatically emailed to the employees at your credit union. Not only does this ensure that you’re meeting compliance regulations, but you also don’t have to worry about any potential fines.

ECM really helps credit unions stay ahead of any impending regulations ensuring that your employees are up-to-speed, as well as making sure that your systems are secure, auditable, traceable and flexible enough to adapt to whatever changes are heading down the regulatory road.

There you go. Three ways to crush compliance concerns.

Are you crushing them? Or are they crushing you?

In the next part of this series, we’ll take a look at how branches can embrace ECM and be part of your connected credit union.