Help, I am in need of some direction. I am fairly new to compliance and senior management has asked to review and approve the following situation.

We have a business customer who is in the medical field and they want to include information about our bank on their web-site and the fact financing is available through us. They want to use our logo and describe program benefits if financing was obtained from us. It would include such terms such as “up to 100% financing, extended payment plans, no prepayment penalties, and convenient fixed, monthly payments.” There would also be included on the web page a payment estimate scale where there would be tiers of amounts financed with a range up to $5,000, the number of months, and a payment range based on rates from 7% to 9.5%. There would be a disclaimer at the bottom of the payment estimates section wherein it would be disclosed that the actual payment will be determined based upon the total amount of the loan plus the bank interest rate in effect at the time the loan is approved. The bank’s telephone number would be provided for more information about the program.

I would appreciate it if someone could tell me what I should be looking at to ensure this proposed type of advertising is compliant.

Wow - that sounds like a tremendous opportunity, but also a tremendous compliance headache! I would be very concerned about this info being on someone else's website. What if their website got infiltrated or if changes are made you do not know about? What if they do not post the proper disclosures? What if people click "contact us" thinking they are contacting the bank, but get someone else?

Have you thought about this business linking to a special page on your bank's website so you can at least control the content? You might read up on "weblinking" risk as provided by your regulators.

Also you can contact the Power Posters/Gurus on BOL for specific advice. Several of them will provide consulting for a reasonable fee. To me, this arrangement would warrant outside advice from an expert.

Thanks for your insight. This would be strictly an informational page on the customer's website and there would not be a direct link to our site. I could be wrong, but I don't believe weblinking would come into play in this situation. You do bring up a valid issue about the control of content on the informational page. Do you believe that sometype of written agreement between the bank and customer would be appropriate to control the content on the page?

This is basically an advertisement and you have the opportunity to control the content. The ad should be compliant with all regulatory requirements. You could maintain that you were unaware of the ad, etc. but that wouldn't be "doing it right".

If you really want to cooperate on this cobranding and referral program a link on their site to your site, where all this advertisement would be, would allow you the controls necessary to do it right. So at the medical site, you click for financing info and boom, you are transported to a special offering page on your bank's site.

I don't know that it will apply here, but you may have to look at your scenario and determine who is collecting what data and if HIPPA applies anywhere.

The weblinking guidance applies--and for good reason! There is reputational risk whenever your bank is associated with another business. These risks should be considered as you decide what's OK and what's not. You need a written agreement (it doesn't have to be lengthy or complicated) to cover the rights and responsibilities of each party. Without an agreement, you can find yourself helpless to deal with surprises.

If you're comfortable with the business and reputational risks, I'd recommend that you retain control of the content of the promotional page. Fortunately, this is as easy as putting your page into a frameset on the customer's web site. Site users will not notice (or care) that the frame with the detailed financing information is being served from your site, not the customer's.

You didn't indicate that the customers' customers are consumers, but we'll assume that's the case. All promotions of consumer credit terms and conditions must comply with Reg. Z's anti-bait & switch rules--if you promote particular credit terms, then they must be available to qualified consumers.

Sorry to pull this one out of the archives, but can anyone point me to how/where I could get the guidance on weblinking provided by "our regulators" referenced by Anon in the chain above? We're under the Fed and OCC.
Thanks.

Interagency guidance is here. Fed reportedly follows the guidance even though that agency was not a joint issuer.

That is great that they approached you about doing this, but I would definately just go with a simple "Financing provided by BANK" and include a link to the applicable page on your site.

And might I say that if they're willing to do all of this for free you and your staff must be doing a heck of a job. Congrats!