Archives for September 2019

PLANO, Texas — The CMI Group and its legal partner Malone Frost Martin PLLC received a critical verdict in recent legal action, a pivotal decision for the Accounts Receivable Management (ARM) industry. The verdict defends The CMI Group and the ARM industry as a whole against claims, specifically as they relate to revenue cycle management, debt collection and the technologies utilized. The CMI Group is an industry leader in accounts receivable management, customer care, revenue cycle management, and omnichannel communications, and this recent ruling demonstrates the firm’s full compliance with all laws and regulations as well as their expertise and understanding of the industry on behalf of their clients.

Malone Frost Martin PLLC represented The CMI Group at trial in the Northern District of Texas for claims associated with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and the Texas and Kansas Fair Debt Collection Acts. Robbie Malone and Xerxes Martin tried the case with the briefing assistance of Jacob Bach. In the Dehn v. Credit Management, LP trial, the jury weighed both sides, including claims by the plaintiff that the collection technologies utilized by the defendant on behalf of their clients was a violation of the TCPA and Texas and Kansas state debt collection acts.

After presenting all of The CMI Group’s training and compliance records, as well as call logs, collections notes, and call recordings, the jury ruled unanimously in favor of CMI on all claims. Most notably, the jury instruction for the TCPA claim included an adopted application of the D.C. Circuit Court’s ruling in FCC v. ACA International as to what constitutes an automated telephone dialing system under the statute.

“We were confident taking this claim to trial because we stand behind CMI’s reputation in the ARM industry for their expertise, understanding and full compliance with all laws and regulations,” said Xerxes Martin, of Malone Frost Martin. “In fact, we made that the cornerstone of our defense on the state collection law claims.”

“A pivotal question in the case was whether or not the telephone dialing system, an admitted predictive dialer, met the statutory definition of an automated telephone dialing system. The court correctly applied the case law in submitting the charge and the jury understood the issue,” added Robbie Malone of Malone Frost Martin. “This trial victory sets a precedent for the entire industry.”

The implications of this ruling are a milestone for the ARM and revenue cycle management industry, proving that the omnichannel communications technologies used by companies such as The CMI Group in debt and unpaid balance collections on behalf of their clients is in full compliance of federal and state laws. 

“The CMI Group is a highly disciplined organization that has well-established processes, systems, and technologies in place to ensure they deliver both optimum results and positive customer relationships to clients, while remaining in full compliance with the law,” said Christopher Meier, Esq., General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at The CMI Group. “This ruling proved that – through all of our training and compliance policies – The CMI Group is viewed as a company intent on operating in a way that best protects the consumers we work with. I am grateful that we had excellent counsel who was able to convey that to our jury.”

About The CMI Group, Inc.

The CMI Group, a leader in accounts receivable management, customer care, revenue cycle management, and omnichannel communications. The CMI Group is a 100-percent employee-owned solutions provider to clients nationwide. Through its subsidiaries, The CMI Group delivers innovative revenue cycle, accounts receivable, and contact center solutions resulting in enhanced operational efficiency and increased revenue for its clients. The CMI Group believes there is power in relationships and success occurs when individuals collaborate on a common objective. The CMI Group is dedicated to building the trust and bonds that deliver positive results for both our clients and their consumers. Visit thecmigroup.com for more information.

The CMI Group and The CMI Group logo are trademarks of The CMI Group and/or its subsidiaries.

About Malone Frost Martin PLLC

Malone Frost Martin PLLC is a full-service law firm with specialization in the accounts receivable management (ARM) industry.  The firm has offices in Dallas, Texas; Chicago, Illinois; St. Louis, Missouri; and Cedar Falls, Iowa. Malone Frost Martin PLLC provides services in all 50 states. www.mamlaw.com 

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. — Immediate Credit Recovery (ICR) is pleased to announce Lynn (Heineman) Reynolds has joined our executive team to expand our growth in the accounts receivable and business process outsourcing space. Ms. Reynolds has over 26 years in the industry with strong ties in Federal and State servicing contracts, auto, consumer and education verticals. Prior to joining ICR, Ms. Reynolds spent the tenure of her years in the industry with other prominent agencies. She has a B.S. degree from Houghton College in Business Management, formerly served on the COHEAO and NCHER Board of Directors and has been a past presenter at numerous industry conferences.  

In addition to expanding ICR’s suite of services and exposure, Lynn will be responsible for ICR’s sales team, market direction, and marketing strategies. Lynn will also participate in our ongoing commitment to build relationships and develop synergies within the industry. “I have known Lynn for many years and we are very pleased to have her on board and look forward to her contributions as the newest member of the ICR management team”, said Juan Blanco, Chief Operations Officer. 

About ICR

Immediate Credit Recovery (ICR) is a BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) company specializing in customer-centric, performance-driven results in the federal, state, healthcare, education, and consumer verticals.  ICR is a premier servicer that prides itself with the highest levels of data security, regulatory compliance, and professionalism offered in our industry; all while ensuring that every individual contacted receives courteous, prompt and unsurpassed ethical treatment in every conversation. Our independent surveys confirm this unequaled commitment to total customer satisfaction.

ICR was founded in New York in 1990 with locations in Poughkeepsie, NY, Atlanta, GA and in San Angelo, TX.  For more information about our services, please contact sales@icrsolutions.net or visit our website at www.icrsolutions.net  

I love a little irony in the morning. Or in the afternoon. Really anytime is a good time for irony. How about right now.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal just applied strict scrutiny to a Montana state “anti-robocall” enactment that applied on a limited basis to only certain categories of calls, including—but not limited to—political calls. See Victory Processing, LLC v. Fox,  No. 18-35163, 6:17-cv-00027-CCL. The Ninth Circuit concluded that the statute improperly restricted political speech in a manner that is inconsistent with the First Amendment and struck the statute down.

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Why is that ironic? Because the Ninth Circuit has just twice upheld the far broader TCPA—which also regulates political speech and all sorts of additional kinds of speech—applying the same standard. See Dugid and Gallion.

So what’s going on here?

Well, believe it or not, the result appears to turn on whether a statute is written as a restriction subject to content-specific exemptions or as a content-specific restriction in the first place. In other words, a statute that says “you cannot use robocalls to discuss politics” would be (and just was) struck down but a statute that said “you cannot use robocalls unless you are discussing something other than politics,”  would survive, albeit with a severance of the content-specific exemption. Confused? Me too.

Although the First Amendment is designed to prevent unlawful regulation of speech two circuit courts of appeals—including the Ninth Circuit—have recently expanded the TCPA by removing a content-specific exemption from the statute. This is done because statutes that impose content-specific restrictions on speech—like the TCPA and the Montana Robocall Act at issue in Victor Processing— are subject to higher scrutiny levels than content-neutral statute. The basic concept is that although the First Amendment says the government shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, in reality, the government can make such laws but only if they regulate speech in an even-handed way that does not benefit one type of speech over another. Where strict scrutiny is applied: “[a] statute is [only] narrowly tailored if it targets and eliminates no more than the exact source of the ‘evil’ it seeks to remedy.”

Although both the TCPA and the Montana Robocall Act are content-specific, they are different in that the TCPA contains a content-specific exemption and the Montana ordinance contains a content-specific restriction. To be sure the result is the same—speech is regulated based upon its content. Yet the remedy the Ninth Circuit applied to these statutes could not be more different. With respect to the Montana Robocall statute, the Ninth Circuit struck down the enforcement of the restriction entirely because it improperly hampered political speech. With respect to the TCPA, however, the Ninth Circuit severed a content-specific exemption, keeping the law on the books and expanding the TCPA to cover even more speech (including political speech!).  So the same speech the Ninth Circuit just held Montana could not constitutionally regulate remains subject to nearly identical regulation under the TCPA.

This obviously makes no sense. The TCPA’s restrictions on speech do not survive strict scrutiny any more than the Montana ordinance’s do— the TCPA is not narrowly tailored to anything since no one even knows what it covers— and the solution is the same; the statute should be struck down– not broadened– as Victory processing demonstrates.

What is really remarkable here is that it looks like one hand didn’t know what the other hand was doing.  The Victory Processing panel appears to have been unaware of the rulings in Duguid and Gallion –it does not make note of these rulings and affirmatively (and inaccurately) notes “[w]e have not had the occasion to evaluate the constitutionality of a content-based regulation of robocalls until now.” In reality, of course, the Ninth Circuit has twice evaluated the constitutionality of a content-based regulation of robocalls within just the last few months. Just another day in TCPAWorld.

On the plus side, the Ninth Circuit panel recognized that some automated calls are “useful, such as automated appointment or payment reminders.”  It also focused on a narrow area where automated calls are problematic:  “Congress was concerned that unsolicited automated calls—predominantly to landline telephones—were invading individuals’ homes and tying up their phone lines.” Make use of this as you will.

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Editor’s note: This article is provided through a partnership between insideARM and Squire Patton Boggs LLP, which provides a steady stream of timely, insightful and entertaining takes on TCPAWorld.com of the ever-evolving, never-a-dull-moment Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Squire Patton Boggs LLP—and all insideARM articles—are protected by copyright. All rights are reserved. 

Editor’s Note: Back in June of this year, the jury returned the verdict in this case. On Monday, the judge entered the judgment, as described below.

TCPA cases against debt collectors and first-party creditors are notoriously difficult to certify. They typically involve individual issues of consent and revocation that make certification impossible.

But when a debt collection TCPA case does get certified, look out! They can get painful, as a California-based debt collector just found out in McMillion v. Rash Curtis & Associates, 4:16-cv-03396 (N.D. Cal.). The jury returned a whopping $267 million for 534,000 calls. Ouch.

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The defendant did get a bit of a reprieve when the plaintiff dropped the request for treble damages, apparently satisfied with their $267 million bounty.

So why did McMillion result in a massive verdict while other debt collection TCPA cases are being denied certification left and right? The answer appears to lie in the defendant’s calling practices. The case involved four subclasses that fell into two categories: 1) individuals called through skip tracing and 2) individuals called who never had an account placed with the debt collector. If individuals that fall into those two categories were truly ascertainable, then that is a plaintiff’s attorney’s dream. And basically the only way to certify a debt collection TCPA case. Otherwise, debt collection cases devolve into countless individualized inquiries to sift through mountains of account-level data to evaluate consent.

McMillion is, therefore, a reminder to the collections industry of the TCPA risks involved in skip tracing. If you are going to call skip traced numbers as part of a collections strategy, it should never be through a dialer. Or even a manual dialing mode within a dialer. The TCPA risks are simply too high.

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Editor’s note: This article is provided through a partnership between insideARM and Squire Patton Boggs LLP, which provides a steady stream of timely, insightful and entertaining takes on TCPAWorld.com of the ever-evolving, never-a-dull-moment Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Squire Patton Boggs LLP—and all insideARM articles—are protected by copyright. All rights are reserved. 

WILMINGTON, Del. — Phillips & Cohen Associates, Ltd., the international deceased account management specialist, servicing creditors in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, Spain, Portugal and New Zealand, is excited to announce plans to extend its unique, compassion-based servicing to the German market by confirming a long-term lease on a prestigious Düsseldorf base.    

The business, which has been providing market-leading niche services to creditors since its foundation in 1997, has identified the historic and vibrant city of Düsseldorf as an ideal headquarters for its German expansion plans.  After conducting a lengthy due diligence process on the German market, the Board is confident in the value which PCA’s unique services can add for German creditors and has secured a long-term lease at a prime location in the Düsseldorf CBD.

Discussing the expansion, Adam S. Cohen, Co-Chairman/CEO said, “We are delighted to have secured our German office.  Moving into Germany is one of several upcoming steps in our successful international expansion, which has spanned over a decade.  We expect our compassionate engagement model to be well received by the German market and our due diligence in-country made it clear that Düsseldorf represents the ideal location for our growth ambitions.”   

Nick Cherry, COO, commented, “Düsseldorf CBD provides an outstanding base for our business and we are confident that the combination of excellent facilities and strong transport links will help us attract talent from the region to fuel our growth. 

Our long-term lease is also a mark of our commitment to the German market, and we look forward to building a business of scale there.”

About Phillips & Cohen Associates, Ltd.

Phillips & Cohen Associates, Ltd. is a specialty receivable management company providing customized services to creditors in a variety of unique market segments.  Phillips & Cohen Associates, Ltd is domestically headquartered in Wilmington, DE, with additional offices in Colorado and Florida as well as international offices in the UK, Canada, Australia, and Spain.  For more information about Phillips & Cohen Associates visit www.phillips-cohen.com or Philhen.de.lips-co 

PCA provides Equal Employment Opportunity for all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, gender, age, national origin, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, veteran status, genetic information and any other basis protected by federal, state or local laws.

As an extension of First Financial Asset Management (and the FFAM360 group of Companies)’s Leadership Community Outreach Program, members of FFAM360 management partnered with Friends of Refugees to build a community garden and playground for local families in Clarkston, GA. 

Founded in 1995, Friends of Refugees is a non-profit organization that partners with donors, churches, funders, volunteers, businesses, development organizations, and fellow community members to empower refugees through opportunity. The organization and its programs aim to provide for refugees’ well-being, education, and employment. 

On Friday, August 16, 2019, the FFAM360 volunteers assisted in the construction of a new garden and playground for families who, out of fear of persecution, have recently moved to the United States from their home countries. In support of the organization’s efforts to enrich the lives of refugees, FFAM360 is proud to have been a part of the community project. Volunteers helped to spread mulch over the playground floor, assemble and install donated playground equipment, and reap the rewards of serving the local community. 

“Our goal was to help create a positive & rewarding environment for the children and families who have fled their country of nationality in search of a safer and brighter future here in the United States. Being invited to participate in the building of this new community area hosted by Friends of Refugees was a unique opportunity for our management to shoulder some of the burdens these families have encountered during their life journey and, ultimately, to create rewarding change,” says Matthew Maloney, President and Chief Investment Officer of FFAM360.  “Our work with Friends of Refugees deeply reflects the values we hold as a company whose mission is in part to carry out our work with an intentional mission-rooted mindset. Together, we can add value to the communities in which we live and work while making a direct and positive impact on our society and our world. Our volunteerism with Friends of Refugees is an outward expression of our values in action and our commitment to leading by example through Intentional living.”

Friends of Refugees is centered around its three core values of relationship, empowerment, and stewardship. As a member of the Christian Community Development Association, Friends of Refugees deploys targeted theories of change to promote abundant life and build flourishing communities. 

“Each year, the employees and management of the FFAM360 group of Companies engage in various volunteer and charity events as part of the company’s Intentional Living campaign,” continues Mr. Maloney. “Our Leadership Community Outreach Program is part of our annual Intentional Living campaign. Intentional living is each person’s choice to support one another and support the causes that have impacted each of us and those closest to us. We are extremely proud to add our name to the esteemed list of volunteers who are empowering Friends of Refugees and helping to improve the lives of the families who rely on them each day.”

For more information on Friends of Refugees and to find out how you can help, please visit their website at friendsofrefugees.com.

About FFAM360

The FFAM360 group of companies deploys world-class people, operations, and technology to deliver revenue cycle solutions to their clients that optimize their credit and revenue lifecycles. Founded in 2002 with the vision of creating a best-in-class organization that provides comprehensive solutions across the Insurance Subrogation, Healthcare, Staffing, and Financial Service sectors, FFAM360 has achieved many significant awards and recognitions including being honored by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (“WBENC”) as a Certified Women-Owned Business Enterprise. FFAM360 is headquartered just outside Atlanta, GA with additional offices in Phoenix, AZ and Paso Robles, CA.

Back in November 2018, Delivery Financial Services, LLC, filed a lawsuit against Lemberg Law for publishing allegedly libelous statements or, at the very least, negligent misrepresentations on its website. On August 27, 2019, the District of Arizona denied Lemberg Law’s motion to dismiss the claims.

According to the complaint, Lemberg Law “intentionally and recklessly states over the Internet that Plaintiff is engaged in illegal activity. Defendant has no factual basis to support its statements and makes these statements for the purpose of recruiting clients for a fee.” Some of the alleged libel from the website include:

• “Lemberg Law represents consumers nationwide in debt collection abuse, telephone harassment, lemon law, auto fraud, personal injury, wage overtime and class action cases.”
• “Scary Harrassment from 602-490-3955 / 6024903955 Is NOT forever.”
• “Delivery Financial Services may be harassing illegally. Sue for $500-$1,500 per call from 602-490-3955.”
• “Question: I have exhausted every thing I have from messing with Delivery Financial Services and I’m at the end of my rope. Please let me know your staff can help.
  Answer: Hi, you have located the right people. My team perseveres every single day to ease the strain of third party debt collectors who are shirking the state and federal regulations which stops them from harassing honest people like you.”

• “Let’s have a look at this example: a woman is planning to take her daughter out to look for a dress on a Saturday morning. She sets the alarm for 8:30 but her phone rings at 7:30. It’s a bill collection agency inquiring about a medical bill from her daughter’s emergency appendectomy (sic) couple years ago. She hangs up the phone call and the moment she was about to fall back to sleep they call once again. This time around, she tells them she doesn’t have $15,000 to pay the debt. She gets up with effort and starts getting ready for the trip to the store. On Sunday, she sets her alarm clock for 9:00 so she can be at services by 10:15. This time, the mobile phone rings at 6:45 and it’s the same the same (sic) representative. Delivery Financial Services likely is going against the FDCPA because debt collectors can only phone between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. in your time zone.”

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In the order on Lemberg Law’s motion to dismiss, the court found that Delivery Financial Services sufficiently stated a claim for the case to continue. There was some procedural back-and-forth about whether Delivery Financial Services sufficiently supported its bid for diversity jurisdiction to allow a federal court to hear the case, but the order states that the amended complaint resolved this issue.

On September 6, 2019, Lemberg Law filed an answer to the amended complaint denying any allegations of wrongdoing.

In what has become a common theme of late another court in the Northern District of Illinois has held that a dialer must operate randomly or sequentially to qualify as an ATDS under the TCPA. This marks the seventh time a court within that district has so held.

The latest decision is in Smith v. Premier Dermatology, No. 17 C 3712, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 152887 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 9, 2019). The reasoning follows a familiar path.

First, the Court addresses the FCC’s 2003 and 2008 predictive dialer rulings and determines that they were set aside by ACA Int’l.

The Court then moves on to interpreting the statutory language. While recognizing a certain “allure” to Marks, the court nonetheless concludes that the Ninth Circuit’s analysis is inconsistent with the plain text of the statute.

In the Smith court’s view, the statute means what it says:

the plain text of the statutory definition provides that an ATDS is a device that (1) stores or produces telephone numbers that (2) were randomly or sequentially generated and (3) dials them automatically.

Notably, the Court concludes the statutory language is “not ambiguous” such that there is no reason to consider the context or the structure of the statutory scheme.

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The Court also rejects the Plaintiff’s argument that the system has the “capacity” to dial randomly because, in essence, it is a software-enabled dialing device capable of being reprogrammed. It is the present capacity of the system that matters according to the Smith court.

While this latest decision is helpful for Defendants—and indeed does away with a number of pesky arguments TCPA plaintiffs enjoy making regarding the meaning of ATDS—it is small potatoes compared to the coming ruling from the Seventh Circuit in Gadelhak. There the Seventh Circuit is set to definitively answer whether an ATDS must dial randomly or sequentially. And considering that a near majority of the entire nation’s “statutory approach” to TCPA cases arise out of N.D. Ill., losing Gadelhak would be a real problem for Defendants. More to come on that.

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Editor’s note: This article is provided through a partnership between insideARM and Squire Patton Boggs LLP, which provides a steady stream of timely, insightful and entertaining takes on TCPAWorld.com of the ever-evolving, never-a-dull-moment Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Squire Patton Boggs LLP—and all insideARM articles—are protected by copyright. All rights are reserved. 

Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it launched the American Consumer Financial Innovation Network (ACFIN) to promote innovation within the financial sector while also ensuring such advances are safe for consumers. Joining the CFPB as initial members of ACFIN are Attorneys General from Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah. The CFPB invited all state regulators to participate.

In the CFPB’s announcement, Director Kathleen Kraninger writes:

Federal and state coordination promotes consistency in the regulation of consumer financial products and services while facilitating consumer-beneficial innovation. ACFIN will provide a platform for Federal and State regulators to coordinate with each other as they develop new rules of the road and apply existing ones. This coordination can provide greater regulatory certainty across jurisdictions and allow regulators to keep pace with market developments. I will continue to work to encourage other state regulators to join this important new initiative that will foster collaboration among Federal and State regulators.

Separately, the CFPB also announced today that it issued three new policies to promote innovation and benefit consumers: a new No-Action Letter Policy, a Trial Disclosure Program Policy, and a Compliance Assistance Sandbox Policy.

Concurrently, the CFPB issued its first No-Action Letter (NAL) under its new NAL Policy. The purpose of NALs is to promote innovation in products and services that are beneficial to consumers by removing the fear of a supervisory or enforcement action by the CFPB. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) received the first NAL under the new policy to promote housing counseling agencies and lenders to enter into agreements that fund counseling services without the uncertainty of RESPA.

In this announcement, Kraninger states:

Innovation drives competition, which can lower prices and offer consumers more and better products and services.  New products and services can expand financial options, especially to unbanked and underbanked households, giving more consumers access to the benefits of the financial system. The three policies we are announcing today are common-sense policies that will foster innovation that ultimately benefits consumers.

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insideARM Perspective

Innovation in the consumer financial marketplace is important, especially in debt collection—where currently laws and regulations often prevent the use of modern technology. insideARM’s Innovation Council works towards this goal by seeking to advance the adoption of modern, efficient and consumer-friendly technologies within the collection landscape. The Bureau’s new policies are promising as they show its dedication toward ensuring that new, innovating financial products and services get to be explored and see the light of day.

Editor’s Note: This article is authored by Linda Straub Jones of NeuAnalytics and is published on insideARM with permission from the author.

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It may be 12-18 months before the CFPB finalizes their new debt collection rules, but it’s never too early for financial institutions who place accounts with debt collection agencies to start thinking about what those rules will mean for them, and what changes may need to happen when the rules go into effect.  

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Although the proposed rules are being written for debt collectors, financial institutions need to be aware of the rules’ requirements while auditing their agencies to ensure their agencies comply with the new standards. As we’ve seen many times before, financial institutions are held responsible for their vendor’s actions. With your reputation at stake, you want to validate that your agencies are fully in compliance. You don’t want to be the first to end up in the headlines for a lawsuit relating to the new CFPB rules.  

Below are five items you can start thinking about now so you don’t have to rush to get everything done once the new rules are in place: 

1. Obtain updated policies and procedures from vendors with any changes made due to the new rules (i.e., call frequency, copies of new letter wording and formats, texting, emailing, etc.)

2. Ensure your collection agencies update their internal policies and procedures relating to their communication methods.

3. Update your audit questions/procedures for your agencies to include additional communication methods and other requirements in the new rules, for example: 

• Are your agencies now texting?  If so, texts are considered a ‘call’ to a cell phone under the TCPA. Your agencies need to follow TCPA rules for express consent, including tracking consent and revocation. Also, the new rules outline ‘unsubscribe’ requirements, are those in place? 
• Are your agencies now emailing?  If so, what messaging are they sending via email? Is it secure? Have you reviewed the email templates to ensure compliance?  How are the email addresses being verified? Do they have a process in place to avoid emailing at the consumer’s place of employment (unless it is documented that the consumer wants emails there)?   Do they have the proper ‘unsubscribe’ procedures in place? 
• If disclosures are emailed, are proper consent procedures in place? 
• For both texting and emailing, your agencies may now be using a new external vendor to perform those tasks, do you have sub-vendor information updated for those new sub-vendors? 
• Do your agencies use social media messaging? If so, do they have policies and procedures in place to ensure messages are only sent via a private messaging function? 
• You may already have call frequency requirements for your agencies, but make sure they are in line with the CFPB’s new call frequency requirements.  
• Do your agencies credit report your debt? If so, do they have a procedure in place that covers the proposed rule on communication with a consumer prior to reporting the debt?
• Have you reviewed your agencies’ validation notices and ensured they are compliant with the new rules? 

4. Do you use a specialty vendor for collecting deceased debt? If so, do they have updated policies and procedures to follow the new guidelines on who they can contact about the deceased consumer’s debt, as well as the updated validation notice requirements? And have you included that checkpoint in your audit procedures?

5. As rules/regulations change, or as your internal requirements change or are updated, what process do you have in place to track updates and versioning of your audits and ensure your agencies are still in compliance? 

It is important to keep in mind that the final rules may be somewhat different from the proposed rules, so it’s important to be flexible. There are always a lot of moving parts when you outsource accounts to an agency, but taking a little time to think about the upcoming rules before they go into effect will go a long way to ensuring you can timely implement the new requirements without scrambling at the last minute.    

Linda Straub Jones is a Sr. Account Executive at NeuAnalytics, a technology company that provides vendor management, audit, and compliance management solutions to financial institutions.