Compliance Department Staff

I am compliance officer for a $4.6 billion bank with about 130 branches and several financial subsidiaries (for which I am also responsible for compliance). In our compliance department we perform monitoring, training and other general compliance functions, such as research, consulting, rendering opinions, etc. In addition, we perform the operational functions for data collection, import in to a system and geocoding for CRA and HMDA, and the annual submissions. I am the bank's CRA Officer. Out BSA/AML/CIP Officer is in our department too. We monitor for suspicious activity (soon to be more automated), control the exemption lists, submit all CTR's for the bank, plus other BSA-related activity.

I am looking for information on how other compliance departments are staffed in comparison to bank size. And, what functions are performed in your departments. For example, I know that in some banks, all compliance-related monitoring is conducted by the audit department. Also, in some, all BSA-related activity and the BSA Officer are in a separate department.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

You might want to do a search on this subject. It's been asked a few times.

But for an FYI, we're $2billion, 28...no wait 29 branches this week, no subsidiaries. I am the bank's CRA Officer and have two full time staff who handle the day to day CRA "stuff" (data integrity, geocoding, hmda entry, grant management, etc). We have two attorneys on staff who manage compliance (one manages everything but CRA...he and I report to the other). There are 5 staff members under these two gents. BSA is in a separate department. We monitor, train, manage general functions, etc. depending on our respective skills/responsibilities.

I asked the same questions a couple months ago. Search the threads. Also, make sure they tell you whether or not they outsource some compliance areas, such as Trust or IT. That makes a huge difference for staffing requirements. As well, our audit department does most of our compliance testing, so I concentrate on policies, procedures, rolling our new regs and AML. A lender does CRA. So, I am a one man show with assets $500+mil and 10 branches.