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Here are your articles for January 2012

ERM for Community Banks

by Salvatore Zerilli, CPA, CAMS

A bank’s board of directors (BOD) continues to be held to very high standards. The changes coming from the Dodd-Frank Act combined with the prolonged recession, place a community bank at greater risk for failure. Therefore, it is incumbent on the BOD to take action to ensure that risks throughout the institution are appropriately mitigated. That is where Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) comes in to play.

The concept of ERM should not be new to community banks and has been around for many years. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act (FDICIA) was enacted in 1991 in response to the thrift industry crisis. The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) published internal control framework in 1996, which was later updated at the end of 2010, and ERM framework in 2006. Additionally, Sarbanes-Oxley was enacted in 2002. All of these concepts address risks and the controls implemented to mitigate the risks.

Click here to learn how our staff of professionals can help you develop an ERM process to manage risk more effectively and economically.

Is Your Board of Directors Fully Engaged?

by Myron Gellman, MBA

As you are well aware, these are very challenging economic times for financial institutions to conduct business in the marketplace. Faced with significant uncertainly from an economic, legislative, regulatory, operational and liquidity perspective, it is important to understand that your institution’s response to these, and other challenges, will have a tremendous impact on its ability to not only survive, but to thrive long term. Therefore, the question is, how is your board tackling the issues at hand, and are they fully engaged?

The level of engagement from the board of directors varies considerably among different financial institutions. The tone is set at the top by the CEO and Chairman, in an effort to drive the board’s strategic agenda, membership selection, culture, philosophy and performance, which will ultimately have direct correlation to the level of board engagement at their institution.

Continue reading to find out how our staff of professionals can help you plan and keep your board of directors fully engaged.

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