The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has announced that it is launching a new Banker Engagement Site (BES) this month through FDICconnect to serve as the primary tool for exchanging examination planning and other information for consumer compliance and Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) activities.  (The FDIC examines state-chartered banks that are not members of the Federal Reserve System.)  

According to the FDIC, BES will provide a secure and efficient portal to exchange documents, information, and communications.  It will allow a bank to communicate with FDIC examination staff and respond to information and document requests made throughout the supervisory process.

The FDIC states that BES offers new functionality to improve the banker experience in pre-examination process and improves efficiencies through the following features:

• The ability for bank users to collaborate with the FDIC’s examination team when responding to information and document requests;
• The capability to submit questions and comments to the examination team;
• The ability to view submitted responses and documents;
• The capability to associate responses with specific requests;
• The ability to manage the bank’s user roles and permissions;
• The availability of informative user guides and training resources;
• Contact information for the examination team;
• Access to the pre-examination planning response provided for the previous examination; and
• An ability to opt-out of using BES (institutions will be provided an alternative method to respond to pre-examination planning requests and to exchange information).

For pre-planning for consumer compliance and CRA activity initiated prior to the availability of BES, the FDIC’s existing tool to exchange examination information, the Enterprise File Exchange (EFX), will continue to be used.  It also may be used in some additional circumstances.  During their initial pre-examination contact, the FDIC’s examination management will inform banks of the application that will be used for their examination during the transition to BES.  BES is designed to support the consumer compliance examination process and is not planned to be used in other FDIC examinations, such as safety and soundness examinations.

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