What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You: 10 Things to Watch When You’re on a Bank Board

The legal and regulatory climate for a bank is changing on a weekly basis. At least in part due to this, the expectations and liability risk of a bank director are not the same as a year ago, let alone five years ago. To help address this, we crafted a list of some broad themes we believe bank directors should be particularly attuned to now.

Enterprise Risk Management
Risk management is a function, not a committee. Boards need to implement a process to ensure that risks are properly identified and addressed in such a way that the board can demonstrate a “credible challenge” to management. And, beyond creating an effective corporate clearing house for risk, boards need to ensure that the bank possesses a management team capable of carrying out this function.

Third Party Risk
Vendor management has become a hot-button for all banks, as formal and tacit guidance continues to emerge. In addition to performing and memorializing due diligence around vendor selection, banks need to be in a position to understand and properly supervise the work of any vendors. This means having a properly qualified and trained management team that addresses the operational, compliance and other risks potentially resulting from reliance on third parties.

Trust Preferred Securities (TRuPS)
Many banks were forced to defer payments on TRuPS in the aftermath of the 2008-2009 crisis period. With the five year TRUPS deferral period now coming to an end, many bank holding companies don’t possess the funds (and cannot compel a bank dividend) to bring the TRuPS current. Further, regulators have insisted that any proposed capital raise be sufficient not only to pay off the TRuPS, but also to result in a composite CAMELS 2 rating for the bank. Your board needs to understand the resulting threats and opportunities.

Deferred Tax Asset Preservation
Bank regulatory agencies have begun to take issue with rights plans that are designed to preserve deferred tax assets (DTAs), citing the safety and soundness concerns that such plans could present by complicating future capital raises. As regulatory guidance on this point appears imminent, your board needs to understand the implications for your bank and your competitors.

Director Liability
Boards should ensure that they have the benefit of up-to-date exculpation and indemnification provisions in the bank’s charter and bylaws, as well as a robust directors and officers (D&O) insurance policy that is not rendered useless by a host of exemptions. In addition, with so much of the recent banking litigation being focused on process, your board should reconsider and redefine the way that your bank makes, records and polices its deliberations and decisions.

Role of Directors in Lending Decisions
Clearly, directors should be involved in defining the scope of a bank’s lending activities, the delegation of lending authority, and the monitoring of credit concentrations and other risks. But should directors serve on loan committees, and make the actual lending decisions? It’s time to reassess this important issue. Directors making day-to-day lending decisions can blur the lines of proper governance and needlessly expose directors to additional liability risk.

Charter Conversions
Each of the banking agencies seems to be developing a different regulatory mood on key issues, such as business plans, consumer compliance and risk-based regulation. In this post-crisis environment, it is important that you consider whether your bank is appropriately chartered in light of its strategy. Put another way, the trends have changed, and you should consider how these changes affect your bank.

Growth Strategies in a Tough Lending Climate
With traditional loan growth being slow, banks continue to reach for less traditional loan products, such as asset-based lending, factoring, lease finance, reverse mortgages, premium finance, indirect auto lending, warehouse facilities, etc. As always, these products must be considered in light of concomitant compliance risks and capital requirements. Directors should ensure that management performs thorough risk assessments alongside their profit/loss projections.

The Effects of Basel III
Depending upon the size and makeup of your bank, the January 2015 Basel III changes will impact your bank’s regulatory capital position. At a minimum, directors need to understand from the bank’s CFO and auditors that there is a plan anticipating what the pro forma capital position is expected to be under Basel III.

Compliance Issues Can Sink a Strategy
Too many banks with solid strategies have seen their bank’s growth hindered by compliance failures. Bank Secrecy Act/anti-money laundering rules, consumer protection regulations, and poor oversight of third parties can result in enforcement actions and derail growth until the issues are remediated, which can take years. Boards must set a tone at the top with regard to the compliance culture of the bank.

The themes above are top of mind for us, but the environment remains dynamic. This list likely will look very different in another year.