Financial institutions don't want examiners to stay any longer than necessary, since the longer they stay, the more likely they are to find something amiss in an anti-money laundering program, or other compliance area. But for the largest U.S. banks, shooing the examiner out hasn't been an option since 1997 when the resident examiner program, involving both the U.S. Treasury's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve, began. And while the overall number of banks with on-site examiners has dropped from 37 in 1997 to 20 due to industry consolidation, the number of resident examiners has...
Federal banking regulators are shifting their examination priorities from anti-money laundering and other compliance programs to focus on monitoring financial institutions' loan portfolios, liquidity and loss allocations, say former examiners.
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