The federal bank supervisory agencies and the Conference of State Bank Supervisors announced today an interagency effort to improve the efficiency of the examination process by standardizing the request for electronic loan information. This information is used primarily to conduct community and mid-size bank safety and soundness examinations and is currently provided in a variety of formats that can be time consuming and costly for regulators, banks and service providers to administer.

The new standard provides improved data definitions and prescribes a standard format for the presentation of loan information. The new data format will improve the efficiency of the bank examination process and reduce the burden on banks, service providers, and vendors.
Participation is voluntary, but the agencies encourage all institutions to participate when contacted as part of the pre-examination planning process. Examiners will begin asking for the new file in the second quarter of 2002.

Today's initiative was a cooperative effort among the bank regulatory agencies and a number of service providers and software vendors. The agencies will host meetings in April to acquaint additional vendors with the new format.

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