WASHINGTON — A group of financial regulators have announced final changes to its ratings system for examining banks' compliance with consumer protection laws. The update to the ratings generally reflects changes in the marketplace since the rating system was adopted in 1980.
The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council had announced its intention to update the Uniform Interagency Consumer Compliance Rating system (known as the CC Rating System) in May. Monday's announcement indicated that most comments received on the proposed changes were positive and changes from the proposal were not substantive. Neither the proposal nor the final changes represent a change in banks' regulatory burden, the FFIEC said.
"It was not developed with the intention of setting new or higher supervisory expectations for financial institutions," the FFIEC said in a statement. "The rating system's adoption will represent no additional regulatory burden for financial institutions."
The CC Rating System is applied across financial institutions and is comprised of a grade ranging from 1 to 5, with 1 representing the lowest risk of consumer harm to 5, which represents the highest risk. The grades help regulators focus their attention on institutions with a greater likelihood of running afoul of consumer protection rules and laws.
The revised rating system retains the 1-to-5 scale, but it considers the risk profile of the individual institution rather than applying the same standards to all institutions irrespective of their size or complexity. The revised system is also intended to reward proactive compliance systems and give systems with poor compliance ratings an incentive to improve.
