Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC)
What it is:
The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) is an interagency body of the U.S. government that provides standardized methods for examining financial institutions in accordance with numerous regulating bodies.
How it works/Example:
The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council was established on March 10, 1979 as an added part of the Financial Institutions Regulatory and Interest Rate Control Act of 1978. The FFIEC is an interagency body, meaning it is comprised of members from several financial regulatory organizations, including the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Mergers & Acquisitions International Clearing (MAIC). These agencies cooperate together in order to standardize the regulation of financial institutions.
The council also provides a way for the public to access data about home loans and prices that depository institutions are required to disclose by law. The FFIEC also compiles this data in yearly reports for the public to research information pertaining to specific metropolitan and census areas.
[You can find the FFIEC aggregate mortgage loan data here]
Why it matters:
The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council protects investors from fraud by holding companies accountable to regulations established by the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, the FDIC, the NCUA and the FRB among others. The standardized forms and principles of the FFIEC ensure that the examination and auditing of companies is done in a uniform way, making it more efficient. When investors see that their invested money is guaranteed by institutions such as the FDIC or NCUA, they can be more confident that the guarantees will be honored because of oversight from agencies through the collective FFIEC.