Banking Regulation Sign-Offs

Banking regulation sign-offs are a core component of banking bureaucracy. Such bureaucracy has been with us for more than 5,000 years, and for good reason – regulatory compliance is an essential component of economic stability. The need for regulatory compliance was well demonstrated when the Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns, and most of Wall Street went into complete meltdown.

As a result of the 2008 regulatory failure, rules such as Regulation W were tightened, which meant more “paperwork” and more oversight of the banks. But, of course, there is very little real paperwork left in our administrative processes. Where it does exist, it is often the last step in the administrative chain.

Breaking free of paper and going virtual has had untold benefits, but it does offer some unique challenges. One of these challenges has been compounded by a rather outdated mode of communication, email. Email most certainly has its uses and is a very effective one-to-one backchannel. However, an email chain, however, can quickly become unmanageable as a communication strategy and is most certainly a poor choice for most administrative processes.

The Bank of Montreal approached SoHo with a request to modernize its formal administrative systems to remove old practices such as emailing signed PDF attachments for approval.

The Bank required a data-management system that provided robust and secure:

• Identity and access management (IAM)
• Centralized repositories of official documents
• Version control strategies
• Regulatory compliance

SoHo is a highly compatible partner for this project with its extensive experience in banking, regulatory compliance, and SharePoint.

Banking Regulation Sign-Offs Can Be Managed With Judicious Application of Tech

The solution leveraged the existing technology footprint of SharePoint, InfoPath, and Designer Workflows, as well as the existing security setup of Active Directory.

As a result of SoHo’s customized SharePoint implementation, the Bank of Montreal’s administrative infrastructure and processes are now fully compliant in the following business areas:

• Regulation W
• 17B
• Error reports

Banking Regulation Sign-Offs are Key to Regulatory Compliance

Regulatory compliance is quite simply nonnegotiable within many industries. The Bank of Montreal’s reputation is secure in an ever-changing regulatory landscape because the infrastructure provided allows for far greater oversight.