New BITS Program Eases Paperwork Burden

Collection firms should find it easier to meet some of the security requirements of financial services providers due to new programs from BITS that are being adopted by banks, according to Michele Edson, senior vice president of the Santa Fe Group, a New Mexico-based strategic consulting firm.

BITS, the not-for-profit, CEO-driven financial service industry consortium made up of 100 of the largest U.S. financial institutions, works to foster collaboration to address technology issues. It is a part of Washington-based organization The Financial Services Roundtable. One BITS initiative on security safeguards was the development of the Financial Institution Shared Assessments Program for member firms that use third-party service providers such as collectors. The Santa Fe Group administers the Shared Assessments program for BITS.

The program has introduced the Standardized Information Gathering (SIG) questionnaire and the Agreed Upon Procedures (AUP) to replace duplicative, separate questionnaires and procedures “that are very similar that are required by each financial institution,” according to Edson.

The SIG questionnaire has been adopted by 42 industry firms and the AUP has been adopted by 23 financial service firms, according to Edson.

Even if a collector is working for a financial institution that has yet to adopt the uniform questionnaire, the firm can download the document from www.bitsinfo.org/fisap and propose the document be used instead of a custom document.

Edson will be part of a panel that will discuss this program in more detail Thursday at the Foreword Financial Expo in Chicago.