Tackling Compliance Challenges for Credit Unions

Credit Union National Association (CUNA) recently shared some research results from a long-term effort to study and understand the challenges that credit unions are facing in the area of compliance management. After five years of market analysis, surveys, focus groups, and other investigation, CUNA’s findings offer some revealing insights:

What’s Missing: Compliance Management Processes & Solutions

Many credit unions don’t have the tools or resources they need to efficiently track and mitigate the risks associated with non-compliance. The most frequently mentioned gaps in credit unions’ management capabilities included:

• Access to controls / procedures
• Training library
• Policy management
• Advanced risk assessments
• Mapping
• Advanced Reporting

It’s not surprising, then, that 85% of the credit unions CUNA surveyed said they would be likely to use a compliance management platform to help simplify and streamline their daily compliance efforts.

But what type of functionality would make the biggest impact in improving compliance management?

What’s Needed: An Efficient Compliance Framework 

It’s estimated that only 17% of U.S. credit unions are currently using compliance management technology. That means there’s significant room for improvement in boosting the effectiveness of compliance management programs. CUNA has identified four elements of an integrated compliance model that credit unions need to boost efficiency and reduce risk.

1. Automated Workflows: Reduce Time Spent on Manual Tracking & Reporting

Compliance process workflow: Identify > Assess  > Plan > Complete > Communicate > Review

• Identify regulatory change
• Assess the risk of non-compliance
• Plan response to risks and determine action items
• Complete compliance tasks
• Communicate compliance status across the enterprise
• Review results and prepare for compliance audit

Automated workflows for every stage of the compliance process allow credit unions to save time and devote more resources to serving their members.

2. Compliance Alerts: Stay Ahead of Regulatory Change

Automatic alerts for both federal and state laws and regulations equip credit unions to monitor the regulatory landscape without the hassle of manually tracking changes. A platform with built-in regulation libraries provides centralized access to executive summaries, links to regulatory content, and industry-specific action items.

3. Risk Management Capabilities: Protect Your Organization & Its Members

A compliance management platform provides built-in risk assessment templates, the ability to map controls and procedures to relevant regulations, and other features to help credit unions monitor and mitigate risk.

4. Integration: Consolidate Your Compliance Efforts

“Compliance for credit unions no longer lives in a siloed environment . . . It’s now much more of a governance, risk, and compliance mindset.”

— Todd Spiczenski, Chief Product & Services Officer, CUNA

Integrated compliance technology allows credit unions to link their compliance efforts to other risk and governance activities and categories, such as vendor management or IT risk and cybersecurity. It also unites multiple activities—including task management, training management, policy and document management, and more.

Quantivate + CUNA = Credit Union Compliance Challenges, Solved

Quantivate and CUNA recently announced a forthcoming partnership to address many of these concerns and provide access to a comprehensive, credit union­–centric compliance solution for CUNA members. Subscribe to our blog using the form at the top of this page to hear the latest about how Quantivate’s technology will power this new solution, and also get valuable insights about compliance and other GRC topics straight to your inbox every week.