The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council proposed Tuesday social media guidance for financial services players.
The guidance is meant "to help financial institutions identify potential risk areas to appropriately address, as well as to ensure institutions are aware of their responsibilities to oversee and control these risks within their overall risk management program,"
Among the FFIEC's suggestions were advising financial institutions to have in place risk management programs that allow them to identify, measure, monitor and control risks related to social media. These programs, as outlined in the proposed guidelines, should involve staff from compliance, technology, information security, legal, human resources and marketing. The document also details the laws and regulations that may have relevance to a bank's social media activity, such as the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which governs debt collection practices.
The FFIEC is seeking comments to its proposed guidance. The agency wants feedback such as whether there are areas in social media the agency has failed to explore in its document, among other things. Comments can be filed here.
The FFIEC has six voting members, with representatives from the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation among them.
The guidance will be finalized sometime after a 60-day comment period.
