The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency recently issued a revised Policies and Procedures Manual (PPM) for assessing civil money penalties (CMP). The PPM applies to CMPs assessed against all national banks, federal savings associations, federal branches and agencies licensed by the OCC, and institution-affiliated parties. It also applies to bank service companies and service providers.

Most notably, the PPM includes two matrices to be used by the OCC “as tools to ensure that CMPs are imposed consistently and equitably.” The matrices list various misconduct factors (such as intent, continuation after notification) and mitigating factors (such as full cooperation after notification) which are used to produce a score. The score (and a bank’s total assets) is then used to determine a suggested CMP.

Given the CFPB’s commitment to transparency, industry would certainly welcome a similar matrix from the CFPB to explain its analysis for assessing CMPs in supervisory and enforcement actions.