Remarks by
Martin J. Gruenberg
Chairman
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
to
the Seventh Annual FDIC Consumer Research Symposium
Arlington, VA
October 13, 2017
Martin J. Gruenberg
Chairman
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
to
the Seventh Annual FDIC Consumer Research Symposium
Arlington, VA
October 13, 2017
1
Good morning and welcome to the Seventh Annual FDIC Consumer Research
Symposium. We look forward to the opportunity this event affords us to engage with the
independent research community. Your participation today will help inform our
understanding of consumers’ capabilities, knowledge, and preferences for financial
services, as well as their experiences in the financial services market.
The papers you will hear about today were selected from over 100 total submissions.
They are of a very high quality, and I believe will prompt robust discussion.
I would like to ask you to join me in recognizing and thanking all the members of the
team that have made this event possible, especially Mark Pearce, Jonathan Miller, Keith
Ernst, Ryan Goodstein, Jeffrey Weinstein, Alicia Lloro, and Shannon Greco. I would
also like to express my appreciation for the presenters, discussants, and moderators who
have come prepared for what I am sure will be an engaging set of panels.
The FDIC places a high priority on learning from the leading research on consumers and
consumer financial services. I would like to take just a few minutes this morning to
describe the role of research and analysis in our consumer protection supervision and
economic inclusion activities.
Research and Analysis in Consumer Protection Supervision
Under our current supervisory approach, the FDIC seeks to identify, address, and
mitigate the risk of consumer harm at each of the 3,711 financial institutions it
supervises.1 This approach is now reflected in recently updated interagency standards for
assigning ratings to financial institutions’ compliance efforts—the first such revision to
those standards since 1980.
Where the previous standards reflected a focus on transaction testing for compliance with
regulatory standards, the current standards focus on a risk-based examination process.
This process evaluates whether an institution has put in place appropriate policies and
procedures and taken other measures to ensure that it can offer its products and services
in compliance with applicable law, minimizing the risk of consumer harm.
This emphasis on consumer harm helps ensure that the federal banking agencies are well-
positioned to implement the consumer protections embedded in federal law. In practice,
this means that examiners are focusing less of their attention on technical concerns and
more on issues which may actually impact consumers.
This approach to supervising compliance with consumer protection standards has been
favorably received by financial institutions, which report that compliance examinations
add more value when they bring a focus on potential substantive concerns.
1 Source: FDIC Statistics at a Glance (as of June 30, 2017)
https://www.fdic.gov/bank/statistical/stats/2017jun/industry.pdf.
Good morning and welcome to the Seventh Annual FDIC Consumer Research
Symposium. We look forward to the opportunity this event affords us to engage with the
independent research community. Your participation today will help inform our
understanding of consumers’ capabilities, knowledge, and preferences for financial
services, as well as their experiences in the financial services market.
The papers you will hear about today were selected from over 100 total submissions.
They are of a very high quality, and I believe will prompt robust discussion.
I would like to ask you to join me in recognizing and thanking all the members of the
team that have made this event possible, especially Mark Pearce, Jonathan Miller, Keith
Ernst, Ryan Goodstein, Jeffrey Weinstein, Alicia Lloro, and Shannon Greco. I would
also like to express my appreciation for the presenters, discussants, and moderators who
have come prepared for what I am sure will be an engaging set of panels.
The FDIC places a high priority on learning from the leading research on consumers and
consumer financial services. I would like to take just a few minutes this morning to
describe the role of research and analysis in our consumer protection supervision and
economic inclusion activities.
Research and Analysis in Consumer Protection Supervision
Under our current supervisory approach, the FDIC seeks to identify, address, and
mitigate the risk of consumer harm at each of the 3,711 financial institutions it
supervises.1 This approach is now reflected in recently updated interagency standards for
assigning ratings to financial institutions’ compliance efforts—the first such revision to
those standards since 1980.
Where the previous standards reflected a focus on transaction testing for compliance with
regulatory standards, the current standards focus on a risk-based examination process.
This process evaluates whether an institution has put in place appropriate policies and
procedures and taken other measures to ensure that it can offer its products and services
in compliance with applicable law, minimizing the risk of consumer harm.
This emphasis on consumer harm helps ensure that the federal banking agencies are well-
positioned to implement the consumer protections embedded in federal law. In practice,
this means that examiners are focusing less of their attention on technical concerns and
more on issues which may actually impact consumers.
This approach to supervising compliance with consumer protection standards has been
favorably received by financial institutions, which report that compliance examinations
add more value when they bring a focus on potential substantive concerns.
1 Source: FDIC Statistics at a Glance (as of June 30, 2017)
https://www.fdic.gov/bank/statistical/stats/2017jun/industry.pdf.