The Coming Compliance Storm: What Smaller Financial Institutions Can Do Now To Prepare

There is something about a massive storm approaching that brings both wonder and a bit of terror to those that lie in its path. Having spent a pair of hurricane seasons in Haiti, and having seen the ravages of massive storms on ill prepared locales, I can appreciate the concern of those in the path of any storm.

Every morning, I comb the websites of the regulatory agencies, looking for the latest developments on hot topics to post to our online issues tracking board, NBHotList (you should drop by; it’s good stuff). The last couple of weeks have been relatively quiet on the agency boards, due largely to the national holiday. But a closer look at the warning signs suggests that what we may be experiencing now is the deceptive calm before the storm.

I was looking at the GSA (General Services Administration) website that covers the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. It’s a rather daunting website in many respects. For one, spend some time on the webpage (http://www.reginfo.gov/public/jsp/Utilities/index.jsp) and you’ll see that our national government is one busy collective group.

There are 53 Agencies and, not surprisingly, each of them seems intent on promoting regulations.

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