Mike Stevens Wraps up NMLS Conference

Mike Stevens, Senior Executive Vice President of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS), wraps up the 6th Annual NMLS Conference.

Jeff DiMatteo Gives the Debt Collector’s View of NMLS

Jeff DiMatteo, President of American Profit Recovery, Inc., talks about the latest issues facing the debt collection industry and the industry’s views on NMLS.

Charles Vice Gives High-Level View of NMLS

Charles Vice, Commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Financial Institutions and Chairman of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, gives his high-level view of NMLS.

Skeet Rolling Gives the Industry Perspective of NMLS

Skeet Rolling, Chief Operating Officer of ITC Financial Licenses, offers his opinion of supervision of money transmitters and the impact of NMLS.

Patrick Murck of Bitcoin Foundation Gives Luncheon Address

Patrick Murck, General Counsel of the Bitcoin Foundation, is today’s luncheon speaker.

Mike Stevens  of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) introduced Murck, and took the opportunity to mention the CSBS Emerging Payments Task Force launched just this morning.  The Task Force, which is chaired by David Cotney, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Division of Banks, is charged with studying changes in payment systems to determine the potential impact on consumer protection, state law, and banks and non-bank entities chartered or licensed by state authorities.

In his remarks, Murck provided an explanation of what bitcoin is, what virtual currencies are, discussed the potential role of virtual currencies in commerce, and the appropriate role of supervision in this emerging and dynamic field.

According to Murck, the  bitcoin network has great potential “to move those people trapped in a cash-based informal economy to a globally connected digital economy.”

Panel Discussion on Consumer Complaints

Scott Pluta, Assistant Director of the CFPB; Larry Hattix, Ombudsman of the OCC; and Tom Candon, Deputy Commissioner of Banking and Securities for the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation, discuss consumer complaints on a panel moderated by Chuck Cross of CSBS.

Here’s the panel in action:

Holly Petraeus of CFPB Addresses NMLS Annual Conference

Holly Petraeus, Assistant Director of the CFPB’s Office of Servicemember Affairs, addressed attendees of the NMLS Annual Conference.

In her remarks, Petraeus discussed the structure and mission of the Office of Servicemember Affairs and detailed initiatives underway to increase financial awareness among and protect members of the military, veterans, and their families.

Recap of NMLS IT Technical Track

On Monday, state agency IT staff met to discuss the technical details of using NMLS.

The Tech Track was attended by about 20 state IT professionals.  The agenda was designed to be highly interactive to assist CSBS IT staff in understanding how CSBS can assist state IT organizations in addressing evolving IT and security concerns, specifically regarding NMLS.  The agenda included:

• The NMLS roadmap, presented by Mike Belak.
• Current and planned enhancements to NMLS security controls, presented by Mark Rippe.
• The State Regulatory Registry’s (SRR) implementation of SalesForce.com for the NMLS Call Center, as well as tracking and responding to requests from state IT departments, presented by Kathy Hunter.
• Peter Wallace facilitated a discussion sharing successes and challenges experiences by state IT organizations regarding similar IT needs, as well as a roundtable discussion of specific items that are of greatest interest to state IT departments and solutions CSBS might provide.

CSBS staff collected a lot of feedback from the states, which will all be documented in Clarizen as issues, where they can be prioritized and tracked.  Where it is not feasible to list all feedback here, some common themes were:

• State IT professionals expressed their willingness and desire to be engaged early in any activities that do have or may have a technology element or impact.
• State IT professionals provided feedback regarding improvements in the NMLS software development life cycle process that would enable new functions to be implemented in a more agile fashion.
• State IT professionals provide specific feedback to the current NMLS data download process and recommendation for improvement.

CSBS technology staff continue to be appreciative of the feedback from the state IT professionals at the NMLS conference and ongoing throughout the year.   There was general consensus among the group that the nature and scope of the discussions warranted expansion of the Tech Track at the next conference to two days.

Breakout Session on Debt Collectors

Yesterday there was a fascinating breakout session titled “Licensing on NMLS: A Focus on Debt Collectors.”

Elizabeth Benotti, Chief Director of Consumer Finance and Money Service Business of the Massachusetts Division of Banking; and Chris Ludwig, Consumer Licensing Division Supervisor of the North Dakota Department of Financial Institutions, spoke on the panel moderated by Mary Pfaff of CSBS.

Here’s a photo of the panel in action.

Cindy Begin Chats About AARMR

Cindy Begin, Chief Risk Officer of the Massachusetts Division of Banks and President of the American Association of Residential Mortgage Regulators (AARMR), discusses AARMR’s role in state mortgage supervision.