SIMPLE CU

Bear Systems is building on its next generation cybersecurity platform to provide a range of SIMPLE (Secure Integrated ML Platform Leveraging Expertise) solutions for the world’s most pressing needs.  This blog entry is one of a series of introductions showing how Bear can provide a SIMPLE solution for specific vertical challenges.

Many aspects of financial transaction systems and banking are covered in other SIMPLE Blog Posts and this post is focused on one of the major challenges for Credit Unions – compliance.

We all know about the “too big to fail” moniker associated with large banks.  For Credit Unions, however, a visit from the government is extremely stressful as more small banks are shut down due to compliance issues than you might believe.  The number of community banks has decreased by 27% while credit unions have decreased by 40% over the past decade and that is mostly due to compliance and regulations.

The reasons underlying these challenges boil down to cost and lack of understanding.  Large banks have tons of resources to analyze and understand compliance.  They have enough money to survive large fines and they have people that can constantly manage and adjust operations as regulations change.  Community banks and credit unions – often more beneficial for consumers due to lower costs – just do not have these resources.  It is almost as if the government is working against these small banks and yet the rules, they put in place are for our protection.

Now many people did not care in the past – after all why not just bank with the big banks?  Then Covid hit, the big banks took almost all of the relief money and gave their small customers nothing, and everything started to change.  I use a small bank and all of their customers were prioritized and we all got our PPP loans.  Given my experience with mortgages, loans, and now Covid, I will never use a big bank again.

SIMPLE CU is devoted to helping these community banks and credit unions thrive in the midst of continuous regulatory changes.  SIMPLE CU can enable complex policy controls at the level of each device, across systems, and throughout a financial system.  SIMPLE CU can automate and enable compliance control between banking systems and instantly change processing rules, security, and access dependent on the regulations by options such as type of transaction, location, and even dynamic inputs like exchange rates. SIMPLE CU is able to centralize and automate compliance reporting to eliminate complex reviews and costly fines.

While all of those features are important, it is the governmental aspect that will make SIMPLE CU so powerful.  The goal of SIMPLE CU is to provide the FDIA with the ability to change compliance rules through a visual management platform.  This same platform can be used by the FDIA to instantly retrieve and review any banking system that is registered.  When new regulations are released, SIMPLE CU can provide a visual impact report for a given bank and then the bank admins can approve/disapprove distribution.  If they reject the new rule, that bank will be able to provide their rationale and their explanation will appear to the FDIA when the next inspection occurs.

To make this system work – to eliminate the overhead, cost, and risk that is crippling smaller banks – SIMPLE CU will need you to join this effort.  SIMPLE CU will require a significant percentage of smaller banks to join in this push in order to get the FDIA to engage and agree to use this new platform.

There is obviously more, much more, to our SIMPLE CU solution and, if you are interested in helping to get SIMPLE CU to become a reality, please contact us to learn more!