CU*Answers, the West Michigan-based CUSO, recently stressed that credit unions are often subject to a bewildering number of policies and regulations. In order to assist credit unions with managing their obligations, CU*Answers announced that it had developed PolicySwap in order to help credit unions navigate the compliance process and to reduce the compliance cost for each institution.
CU*Answers said PolicySwap represents a collaborative website where CU*Answers clients can share policies and procedures with each other. For instance, should a credit union be looking for a BSA policy that matches its goals, they can browse PolicySwap for other credit unions’ BSA policies to find the best match. Every uploaded policy is reviewed by the CU*Answers team for quality, to ensure its credit unions are receiving the best possible value for their time. However, they added that no policy manual, however well-intentioned and closely followed, can guarantee that a credit union will pass every regulatory audit. They emphasized that rapidly changing conditions in the regulatory landscape may quickly invalidate the policies and procedures of a credit union, and that each credit union has final responsibility for understanding the most current regulations and ensuring their credit union is in compliance.
CU*Answers is encouraging other credit unions within the network to share policies they may have as well for others to also incorporate. They added that as incentive, credit unions who share their policies within PolicySwap are eligible to collect CollabRebate points, which may be redeemed for cash rewards.
They concluded by saying that PolicySwap represents its most recent collaborative effort in allowing credit unions to share meaningful information with each other for saving time and in being better prepared for that next examination. They said its previously developed ExamShare website is also available, providing a location for credit union leaders to review the latest news and bulletins regarding recent examination experiences of their peers. They said both PolicySwap and ExamShare are examples of the Cooperative Score initiative (http://score.cuanswers.com/) and CUSO spirit which is the hallmark of the cuasterisk.com community network.