Spare time is a foreign concept to Richard Insley.
By day the chief regulatory compliance officer at Signet Bank, Richmond, Va., he spends nights and weekends running APR Systems Inc., his one-man compliance software company with an estimated 3,000 customers.
"The first thing I do when I get home from work is check the voice mail to see how many calls I've gotten and what products they want," Mr. Insley said. "Then, I hit the phones."
To get Signet's permission for this entrepreneurial venture 12 years ago, Mr. Insley had to promise to keep his two jobs separate. So, APR Systems can be reached via the Internet and voice mail, but not through Mr. Insley's office at Signet.
For that reason, Mr. Insley limits his business to audit and review software products. His biggest-selling product is the APR Examiner, a juiced-up Sharp calculator that walks bankers through the steps of verifying disclosed annual percentage yields and rates.
For example, when verifying annual percentage rates, the calculator asks: how many payments will be made and how often, what the disclosed annual percentage rate and the amount financed were, how many payments will be made and for how much, along with the loan-signing date and the payment start date.
As a result, the bankers get: the actual annual percentage rate; a determination of whether it is close enough to the disclosed rate to be in compliance with Truth-in-Lending rules; the finance charge; and the total amount the customer will pay over the life of the loan.
"He's made it a real user-friendly process," said Phillips Gay, another banker with a compliance business on the side.
The senior vice president and compliance officer at Bank of North America in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., opened a consulting firm, Compliance Advisory Services, earlier this year.
Mr. Gay called Mr. Insley "one of the godfathers of Reg Z" because of his work in crafting the Truth-in-Lending rules during the 11 years he spent at the Federal Reserve before joining Signet.
Indeed, the title of Mr. Insley's 1978 thesis - on calculating APR - at the American Bankers Association's Stonier Graduate School of Banking was "How True Is Truth-in-Lending."
But answering questions the products' users have has proved difficult, given the fact that he cannot conduct APR Systems' business during bank hours.
To remedy that, in addition to electronic mail and off-hour phone calls, Mr. Insley has an electronic bulletin board system that describes how the product works.
Still, to avoid ruffling feathers at work, Mr. Insley keeps a fairly low profile and doesn't even hawk his company's products.
Mr. Gay said Mr. Insley's reputation as a Truth-in-Lending expert allows him to limit his company's advertising to word of mouth or talks at gatherings, such as the ABA's compliance school.
Various bankers who received the product at the school's October session said it has been helpful. One said she used it to successfully confirm a rate for a questioning examiner.
Mr. Insley said APR Systems acts as his security net in an increasingly shrinking industry. He wouldn't comment on his company's revenues. While he doesn't expect to get rich - most of APR Systems' profits will pay his children's future college tuition tabs - the side business gives his family some financial stability.
"Anybody who thinks their job is safe is foolish," Mr. Insley said. "There are no guarantees anymore."
