The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is planning a computer assist for national bank exams, which might become a little less painful as a result.
A system called Examiner View would give all OCC examiners on-line access to a data base containing prior exam reports and other information on national banks.
Stephen M. Cross, deputy comptroller for compliance management, has been temporarily reassigned to oversee the project. Mr. Cross did not return calls for comment, but Delora N. Jee, deputy comptroller for the agency's western district, gave high marks to a prototype of the system.
Ms. Jee said it would spare examiners from having to riffle through paper files or bulky examination manuals.
"It's going to allow examiners to make more ad hoc inquiries," Ms. Jee said. "Instead of having to lug all of our exam manuals around, we can download information directly from this system.
"If we get all of this working as people are envisioning it, we'd expect exams to be faster and more efficient."
Through the system, the Comptroller's Office also would be able to easily amass information to look at trends across the national bank system, Ms. Jee said.
Programs to speed up the exam process also are being hammered out by the other bank and thrift agencies, but they are not working to link up all of their examiners by computer.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s program would reduce the amount of time regulators spend in banks by allowing examiners to download loan information from a bank's data base, then analyze these loans off-site. The Fed is working on a similar automated loan review program. The Office of Thrift Supervision is supplying its examiners with CD-ROMs that contain all the agency's regulations and exam guidelines.
Five state banking departments - Arkansas, California, Kentucky, Connecticut, and Wyoming - are coordinating a test of the FDIC and Fed programs.
"The two programs will allow examiners to spend their time more effectively: on the actual loan review process, rather than on transcribing bank records," said Ellen Lamb, vice president of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors.
