Big Picture
Maintaining fair and compliant lending practices is critical for financial institutions of all sizes. However, navigating the complexities of fair lending regulations and conducting comprehensive self-assessments is challenging and requires a significant investment of time.
Client Scenario
A growing, regional bank sought the development of a two-pronged approach to enhance its fair lending compliance program. Their stakeholders wanted to equip key personnel with the necessary skills to utilize advanced data analysis tools, and establish a structured framework to conduct self-assessments, and implement corrective actions to address any identified issues.
Asurity Solution
The two-pronged solution created by Asurity Advisors, focused on Training and a Fair Lending Action Plan, met the needs of the client by creating a clear roadmap for ongoing/BAU fair lending compliance to reasonably assure the client’s regulators of its understanding and management of fair lending risks, expectations and key requirements.
Training
Asurity Advisors delivered customized on-site training focused on empowering staff with the necessary expertise to fully utilize RiskExec, a leading data analytics platform. These one-on-one sessions provided in-depth training for the bank’s staff, empowering them to conduct advanced self-assessments using RiskExec’s functionalities.
Fair Lending Action Plan
Asurity Advisors facilitated the development of a comprehensive fair lending action plan to comply with key regulatory requirements and expectations. Asurity Advisors delivered the following components:
- Standardized framework to conduct continuous comprehensive fair lending self-assessments;
- Disparity thresholds and review triggers to help define potential lending disparities in loan approval rates across various demographic segments;
- Measurable goals for corrective actions based on the identified root causes of any disparities; and
- Rigorous validation process to credibly challenge self-assessment findings, root cause analysis, and proposed corrective actions.
By partnering with Asurity Advisors, the bank gained the necessary tools and resources to proactively manage fair lending compliance, implement effective compliance measures, and empower their staff to promote a culture of compliance within their roles and responsibilities.