DALLAS — The Texas Credit Union League is finding a burgeoning market in the business of “renting out” compliance officers for on-site visits.

Indeed, the 30 client CUs now in three states are expected to climb 50% by next year to 45 as CUs in Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma, like those elsewhere, find themselves burdened with new and

complex regulations, many arising from the Bank Secrecy Act.

“This is an idea we took from the Georgia League more than a year ago and we've found that both small and large credit unions in Texas seem to appreciate the idea of compliance 'house calls' for both staff training and education,” said Steve Gibbs, director of compliance services.

Taking the program a step further, Georgia Credit Union Affiliates said the temporary sharing model of dedicated staff is now being looked at for other specialties including marketing, business development and security.

“We are hopeful we can start something in one of these areas within the next year,” said Richard Ellis, vice president of credit union development at the Georgia league and who heads up the compliance sharing venture for that league.

Under the “Shared Compliance Specialist” program in Texas, league staffers including Gibbs spend five days on-premise at participating CUs reviewing compliance rules and assisting staff. Fees are arranged on a cost basis with the league staff averaging one CU visit per week.

“In today's high-tech, high security environment,” said Gibbs, compliance has become “a never-ending series of laws regulations and interpretations” that even the biggest CUs have a hard time keeping up with.

“For even the largest credit unions, financial realities and workload often reduce compliance to a collateral duty,” said Gibbs, a former director of

CUNA's Southwest Management School and Compliance Education.

The “cost of errors for even unintentional mistakes” can be even more severe for smaller CUs which face penalties running into the thousands, said Gibbs.

The trained and certified consultants are being leased out “on a time-share basis,” he said with participating CUs choosing the number of weeks per month needed or “they can afford.”

“The ideal situation would be a minimum of five days or one week per client,” he said. Flexibility is built in, however, depending on the clients' needs, locations “and the skill level of our employee.”

Smaller time increments would be charged at higher levels to cover additional costs, he said.

There are at least “16 clusters” of Texas CUs, he said, that can support one or more specialists. And, “if saturated these markets could support 25 positions,” he added.

Overall, these specialists “fill a missing link between the dues-supported, online compliance manual and Information Central calls and our existing internal audit” program handled by another league unit.

“The sheer amount of available data on compliance makes the need for an on-site adjudicator as the right hand for today's business credit union staff a necessity,” he concluded.

Gibbs and other league officials are planning to further discuss the progress of shared compliance at the league's Compliance Seminar Oct. 15-17 at the Dallas Hilton Lincoln Plaza.

In Georgia, Ellis of that league said it has 16 client CUs that are part of its program with six specialists devoted to the compliance task. He said he has talked to several other state leagues about exporting the program and several are interested. Among that group is the New Jersey league “which is now researching it.”

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