The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) recently published a white paper, entitled "Supporting Responsible Innovation in the Federal Banking System: An OCC Perspective." The paper describes the agency's effort to develop a framework for identifying and understanding financial service innovations affecting the federal banking system. Financial technology, or fintech, enables many new services within the financial services industry that have the potential to better serve consumers, businesses, and communities. The Comptroller's goal in developing a framework is to ensure that national banks and federal savings associations integrate the use of innovation responsibly.

At the OCC, we have exploited technology to make the submission of internal reports, applications, and business forms easier by enabling one-click certification, or digital signatures, for electronic submissions. Employing technology smartly to tackle this basic need eases the burden on employees, saves the agency time and money, and maintains the integrity of the submission.

Providing Holistic Mechanisms

A leading technology challenge is balancing mission needs while continuing to enhance the agency's overall cyber-security posture. To succeed, organizations have to change from viewing cyber-security as simply an issue of compliance to viewing it as part of our core mission and part of the service life cycle of a product or service.

Technology vendors need to provide holistic mechanisms to manage their product or platform that cover development, security, and operations in an integrated way. Technology vendors must also better understand the business and environment of their clients. In financial regulation, that means being proactive about new regulatory requirements, industry development, and financial supervision needs.