Category Archives: Resources

40 Favorite Free Resources for Regulatory Attorneys (and Bank Compliance Officers)

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One of the biggest problems with regulatory work in the financial services area is that good compliance resources are scattered and difficult to find, whether you pay for them or not. This guide pulls together some excellent free resources for compliance professionals to kickstart research into new or difficult compliance questions. For a new compliance professional, the below guide ought to reduce about three months of scrambling trying to figure out where to look and what to look for in answering questions about banking compliance matters.

When I began working as a compliance officer and regulatory attorney in the banking industry, I quickly found that the usual legal resources an attorney would use in a litigation practice or transactional practice did not cover banking regulatory topics with any reliability. The major case law search providers did not anticipate the sorts of searches, resources, and topics a compliance officer or regulatory attorney regularly needs in order to respond to daily demands for overcoming regulatory obstacles or responding to the ongoing needs of a bank. Great paid and unpaid resources tended to be obscure and completely unknown to professionals who are not already involved in regulatory work. The mainstream research services are doing a much better job lately. However, many of the free resources still outdo the paid resources across the board.

Because it was so hard to find good materials early on, with the help of other compliance experts, I slowly put together lists of great compliance resources for compliance officers and regulatory attorneys. The list below is based on the research patterns that I often take when encountering a new regulatory question.

Secondary Sources and Outline Materials

There are several excellent free resources that offer quick background information on regulatory topics that might be new to entering and experienced regulatory professionals. Professionals working for agencies and for banks have been putting together guides and outlines for many years to help deal with the difficulty of researching and overcoming layered regulatory problems. Many of these resources are available online.

Examination Manuals and Guides

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) Handbooks –
https://www.occ.treas.gov/publications-and-resources/publications/comptrollers-handbook/index-comptrollers-handbook.html

The OCC has compiled great summaries on regulatory topics within its handbooks and examination materials. These are a great place to start for questions on regulatory topics. The manuals are reasonably well cited, so they are a good place to start a research trail. Most of the topics apply to both state and national banks.

Be aware that these documents field the agency’s opinion on regulatory matters, so it is important to confirm agency positions by reference to primary statutory and rule materials, and, in some cases, case law.

Federal Reserve (“Fed”) Examination Manuals –https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/supervision_cbem.htm

Examination manuals offer insight on how the Fed will look at and investigate a particular topic. The Fed manuals usually have good summary materials for specific regulatory topics and agency positions on regulatory matters. These manuals are also well cited and are a good place to start a research trail.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”) Examination Manuals – https://www.fdic.gov/resources/supervision-and-examinations/

Same value as other agency materials. FDIC manuals have great summaries and can be a good place to get started on new topics or difficult issues.

FFIEC Examination Manuals – https://bsaaml.ffiec.gov/manual

FFIEC manuals are useful for the same reasons but have materials that are more focused on Bank Secrecy Act requirements, Anti Money Laundering Programs, Office of Foreign Assets Control lists and regulations, sanctions and reporting requirements, and so on.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) Examination Manuals – https://www.consumerfinance.gov/compliance/supervision-examinations/

CFPB manuals usually have great summaries on consumer law and regulatory matters. Like other federally-produced materials, the CFPB manuals have good summaries and typically stake out the agency’s position on interpretive issues.

Targeted Searches

Advanced Search Engine Searches – https://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en&fg=1

If you use the advanced search features on a search engine, you can restrict a search to a specific domain, like https://www.jpmorgan.com/, and further restrict results to certain file types, like pdfs and power point files. When you search in this way, the results tend to pull up presentations, papers, memos, opinions, and other documents that might be relevant to your inquiry. This also brings up interesting results from larger industry sites, like https://www.chicagofed.org/  or https://www.3m.com/.

Forums, Blogs, Law Firm Websites

Bankers Online Forum – https://www.bankersonline.com/forum

Search the Forum – Enter this text into a Google search field: “[topic] site: https://www.bankersonline.com/forum/ubbthreads.php

The Bankers Online forum is a longstanding and active forum that retains forum topics in a searchable format. This is a peer to peer forum full of answers to regulatory questions that are both basic and difficult to find in any regulatory manual. There are several regular posters who do a great job of making sure that accurate and complete information is offered as answers to questions. Many thanks to those who regularly participate. Please do double check answers by reference to primary sources. Many times answers are cited, so you can double check on the accuracy and verify conclusions.

Supervisory Reports and Outlook Documents

Fed –https://consumercomplianceoutlook.org/

FDIC –https://www.fdic.gov/regulations/examinations/supervisory/insights/

https://www.fdic.gov/regulations/examinations/consumer-compliance-supervisory-highlights/index.html

https://www.fdic.gov/resources/supervision-and-examinations/

The federal agencies each have additional publications that discuss current regulatory concerns. Regular supervisory outlook and highlights publications usually contain a good summary of the regulations impacting a particular activity when the article addresses that particular issue.

Online Searches – Law Firm Websites

Many attorneys have begun writing summary materials to post online on their websites. These tend to be reasonably well-cited and are becoming a reasonable source for research for some types of questions. Most attorneys are very concerned about the reliability of the written materials they produce, so law firm sites tend to be more reliable than most types of websites. I recommend checking the date of issuance and confirming research before relying on these materials.

Law Firm Regulatory Blogs

There have been some great regulatory blogs. These seem to shift and change over time.

Farley Law – farleylawpllc.com

Niche Bank Lawyer – nichebanklawyer.com

Adding to these posts one at a time.

Primary Resources

I have several of these sources bookmarked. Several are faster and more accurate than trying to work through a legal research provider to find primary banking regulatory materials.

Texas Department of Banking Law and Guidance Manual –

https://txdob.ctspublish.com/texas/browse/txdobset/welcome/root

The Texas Department of Banking provides an excellent searchable resource with primary materials regarding Texas Law that applies to supervised financial institutions. The resource allows keyword searching and covers statutes, regulations, advisory opinions, and other key materials. This is a great place to start when looking at Texas law issues.

Texas Constitution and Statutes – https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/

Texas Administrative Code –

https://www.sos.texas.gov/texreg/index.shtml

https://texreg.sos.state.tx.us/public/readtac$ext.viewtac

Cornell Legal Information Institute – https://www.law.cornell.edu/

Cornell does a great job of hosting US statutes and regulatory material. Typing a statute or regulation citation into a Google search bar will usually pull up the correct provision. Most internal references are linked for ease of use. The site has been adding help text to defined terms that is not always correct but is getting better.

eCFR –

https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/ECFR?page=browse

This used to be really hard to use but has gotten much better. The internal and targeted search functions have improved significantly as well. Links have been built to connect to applicable federal register materials.

Federal Register Online –https://www.federalregister.gov/

Searchable federal register resources. If you know a citation, the issuing agency and date, or a very specific set of key words, you should be able to find what you are looking for. Topic based searches work well but tend to bring up a long list of relevant pages to look at.

CFPB’s Electronic Regulations –

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/rules-policy/regulations/

Great source for looking at consumer regulatory material, comments, appendices, and comparing current and past versions.

Bankers Online Alphabet Soup – https://www.bankersonline.com/regulations

Great place to find current regulations and comparisons. Comparable to, and a predecessor to the CFPB site but addresses just about any banking regulation I can think of. Regs. A – ZZ or more. Hence, Alphabet Soup.

Google Scholar Case Research – https://scholar.google.com/

Google Scholar used to be a very poor resource for case law but has gotten much better in recent years. Searches retrieve relevant topic materials and has rudimentary shepardization capability.

UT Guide to Searching Texas Legislative History –

https://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/texas-legislative-history

I have found this guide helpful in digging up history where Lexis or Westlaw fail.

Updates and List Services

Regulations, guidance, enforcement actions, and public opinion shift over time. In the regulatory arena, it is important to stay on top of regulatory changes. There are some good trade association materials and news sources that do a good job of packaging and delivering this information. However, you can also get it directly – and a little more quickly – by signing up for RSS feeds, agency email publications, and other similar sources.

U.S. Congress –

https://www.congress.gov/get-alerts

Congress has a great website for purposes of tracking recorded bill activity. The site of course doesn’t record every conversation, but it does cover official actions throughout the legislative process.

White House –

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/

Lately, White House press releases and executive orders have been worth watching as they have had broad-based impact on vaccination requirements, SEC rules, and more. You can sign up to receive notices of press releases and orders via the White House website.

Federal Register –

https://www.federalregister.gov/

The Federal Register has flexible options for receiving new postings from agencies you select or for receiving news about updates to specific parts of the Code of Federal Regulations.

Texas Legislature Online – https://capitol.texas.gov/resources/followabill.aspx

The Texas Legislature maintains a website that is useful for tracking bill activity.

Texas Administrative Code – https://www.sos.texas.gov/texreg/index.shtml

Texas Administrative Code – https://www.sos.texas.gov/texreg/index.shtml

The Texas Secretary of State maintains a website where you can find the entirety of the Texas Administrative Code. You can search this using the site’s search features or an advanced Google search. You can also find information about upcoming and past agency meetings. If you want to be updated on new and proposed rulemakings, you can contact the agency responsible for the rulemaking you need to follow. The agency will help you get set up to receive updates on rulemaking activity.

OCC News –

https://www.occ.treas.gov/news-events/newsroom/index.html

The OCC provides regular updates on its activities as well. You can sign up for updates on regulations, press releases, enforcement actions, and other relevant materials for delivery to your email inbox.

Fed News –

https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/subscribe.htm

The Fed provides regular email updates on its activities based on topics and publication types. You can sign up for emails regarding regulatory issuances, information regarding enforcement actions, speeches, press releases, and statistical releases. The Fed has a huge number of publications and data regarding the economy and monetary issues. The publications other than the regulatory and legal publications can be worth reviewing as well.

CFPB News – https://www.consumerfinance.gov/compliance/compliance-resources/signup/

Same for CFPB updates and published notices.

FDIC News –

https://www.fdic.gov/news/press-releases/2022/

Same for FDIC updates and published notices.

FinCEN News –

https://www.fincen.gov/news-room/news

Same for FinCEN updates and published notices.

FFIEC News –

https://www.ffiec.gov/press.htm

Same for FFIEC updates and published notices

Texas Department of Banking – Supervisory Releases and Announcements –

https://www.dob.texas.gov/applications-forms-publications/supervisory-update-news-summary

The Texas Department of Banking issues a regular supervisory update email that contains a summary of regulatory activity relevant to Texas Banks. The Department will also issue updates on DOB related regulations. Inquire at txdob.email@dob.texas.gov to receive this on a regular basis.

Texas Supreme Court –

https://www.txcourts.gov/supreme

Find case law and get updates on case status at the Texas Supreme Court’s website.

News Feeds/RSS Feeds

It is possible to set up a service that will regularly search news articles based on your own keywords and parameters. You can use these reports and releases to capture additional notes regarding significant events which are reported by the news media.

Enforcement Action Archives

Often, it is helpful to look through past enforcement actions and letters issued by a regulator to get a better idea as to how the regulator might see a particular issue.

OCC Enforcement Actions –

https://apps.occ.gov/EASearch

FDIC Enforcement Actions –

https://orders.fdic.gov/s/

Fed Enforcement Actions –

https://www.federalreserve.gov/supervisionreg/enforcementactions.htm

FinCEN Enforcement Actions –

https://www.fincen.gov/news-room/enforcement-actions

CFPB Enforcement Actions –

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/enforcement/actions/

Texas Department of Banking Enforcement Orders –

https://www.dob.texas.gov/laws-regulations/enforcement-orders

Comments Regarding Enforcement Actions

Not all government provided websites have great search capabilities. In many cases, you can use a Google advanced search to search for keywords found in the folder or directories where the enforcement documents are stored online. This permits better keyword search capability.

This can be done by finding an enforcement action and looking at the full URL. If you do a site search for the terms you would like and include the entire URL, except the text past the last “/” mark, you will search the folder where that enforcement action file was found. Many times, all the related files are in the same folder, so you can use Google search to find the rest. Please feel free to reach out if you have questions about this.

Find Your Banking Niche by Looking Over Someone Else’s Shoulder

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Looking over someone’s shoulder does not need to mean copying someone else’s handiwork, but it can be helpful to look at what other banks have done to generate ideas to find your own niche banking activities.

Banks are restricted in the activities that they can take on. Banks generally cannot engage in general commercial activities. Instead, banks are limited to the business of banking, financial activities, and certain closely related activities.

Interpretive Letters

Over the years, many banks have seen opportunities in activities that are financial or closely related to banking but may not be making a loan or taking a deposit. To get clear authorization to engage in a new activity in the gray area of closely related activities, banks can approach their appropriate banking regulator for a letter of interpretation or other formal approval for the bank to engage in a new activity.  These formal opinions are public and are often published by the regulator that issued the opinion.

This means that any bank or bank attorney can peruse these opinions for ideas and opportunities that have been approved at least once before. These letters and approvals are not too hard to find. In some cases, is possible to find summaries of approvable activities for banks. Not all opinions of this nature have precedential value, but they certainly give an idea of what a regulator sees as an appropriate activity for a bank.

OCC Approved Activities

Click here for a list of activities that the OCC has considered to be permissible for national banks. This list is not comprehensive and comes as a comparison of activities that are permissible for national banks versus federal savings associations. A few of the interesting things at a national bank can do are:

  • Provide a collections system for a public authority
  • Invest in a data interchange service (payment network framework) Banks can offer and invest in payments services and the supporting infrastructure.
  • Produce, market and sell software to assist with the performance of authorized banking functions (core banking, bookkeeping, file management, etc.)
  • Solicit and offer “affinity” relationships or special services under a specific trade name

FDIC Approved Activities

A list of activities insured state-bank activities recognized by the FDIC is here. There is a good chance that if a national bank can take on an activity, so can a state bank. State bank and national bank parity laws deserve a more thorough discussion than this article can provide. Not all state and federal regulators see eye to eye on activities that are permissible for a bank, so the list of authorized activities for a national bank is a good place to start for a state bank but should not end the inquiry. Many states have a similar formal approval process for new bank activities.

FRB Approved Activities

Click here for a list of activities they have been approved for subsidiaries of bank holding companies. In many cases a sister company to bank may engage in activities that the bank itself could not. A few interesting activities in this list are:

  • Acquiring debt that is in default at the time of acquisition
  • Private placement services for securities
  • Management consulting services
  • Equity investments in community development activities

If you are looking for inspiration on what the next step for your bank might be, sometimes looking over the shoulders of other banks can provide a spark of imagination. Another great thing about these lists is they also give you an idea of what other activities a bank regulator may consider to be acceptable.