Asking the right questions is the first step in getting the right answers. Simply thinking about how to improve the compliance performance of an organization is a vague proposition and can result in a confusing answer. Instead, banks need to ask the right questions to determine how they can improve compliance levels across branches and optimize their compliance processes for maximum efficiency.

As the American Banker Endorsed compliance solution provider, we spend most of our time helping banks and ask these questions. Some of the questions which can provide the most meaningful answers about compliance performance are:

  • Can our compliance team see compliance issues?
  • How much time does it take for an issue to be resolved?
  • What percentage of the compliance team’s work is menial?
  • Can human errors affect compliance performance?
  • Is the compliance data being used to its full potential?

Can our compliance team see compliance issues?

The compliance team can only manage the issues they are aware of and thus they need to have visibility into compliance activities across the organization. We cannot expect the compliance team to improve their efficiency if they cannot see what the other departments are doing and monitor the compliance framework for the whole enterprise.

Many banks have the right compliance processes in place, but their compliance teams have to way to ensure that those processes are actually being implemented and followed. A compliance management solution can deliver this vital information to the compliance team, allowing them to quickly detect and resolve problems across the organization.

We cannot expect the compliance team to improve their efficiency if they cannot see what the other departments are doing and monitor the compliance framework for the whole enterprise. Click To Tweet

How much time does it take for an issue to be resolved?

Detecting issues is only the first step; what really matters is how quickly the compliance team can resolve the issues. If the compliance team is taking too long to resolve issues, then there may be collaboration or visibility related issues, which need to be investigated. It is also possible that the compliance team is overwhelmed with work.

Some banks run into problems when they ask this question – they have no to see how long it takes them to resolve issues because that data is not being collected anywhere. If a bank runs into this problem, it means that they need to implement a compliance solution which tracks compliance activities and lets them know if an issue is taking too long to resolve.

What percentage of the compliance team’s work is menial?

The compliance experts that comprise the compliance team are highly qualified and experienced individuals. Banks should be making sure that their work hours are being spent as efficiently and productively as possible. That is why it is so important that banks look at how much of the work being done by compliance teams is menial or repetitive. Some research suggests that compliance teams may spend as much as 70% of their time on administrative and menial tasks instead of compliance work.

If the compliance team is spending a majority of their time on such tasks, the banks should look into ways to automate as many of these tasks and processes as possible. This will give the compliance team more free time to focus on actual compliance issues and will have a positive effect on compliance levels across the enterprise.

Can human errors affect compliance performance?

Understanding the vulnerabilities of the current compliance framework is essential. One issue that often gets overlooked is that dependency on manual work increases the chances of human error impacting performance. Compliance monitoring is a good example. If a person is given the responsibility of monitoring compliance processes across the organization, there are chances that he/she may missed some problems. However, if we give the same task to a computer, the chances of being missed are very low.

Banks should decrease the risk of human error from all banking processes. Computers or softwares can monitor and cross-check data at speeds and efficiencies exponentially better than even as compare to productive humans. Big picture tasks, such as creating compliance strategies or communicating the importance of compliance to employees should be left to humans while repetitive tasks that relate to data should be done through technology.

Is the compliance data being used to its full potential?

Data is now considered one of the most important assets of an organization because data can provide actionable insights and predict problems. Most banks will use the compliance data to create compliance reports as required by regulations but do not go beyond that. Their compliance teams are already overwhelmed, and data analytics is a very time-consuming process if handled manually.

Banks should look at the immense amount of compliance data they have and try to use it to its full potential. This means predictive in-depth analytics, data monitoring, finding relationships between data points, and so on.

If your organization is asking these questions and realizing that they need to improve the way they manage compliance, then get in touch with our compliance experts to see our American Bankers Association endorsed compliance solution in action.