As the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act reached its half-year mark, an analysis of the landmark legislation by ""Ernst & Young"":http://www.ey.com reveals that early mobilization will become more critical as rule-making activity moves toward the one-year anniversary - when many final rules are put in place.
[IMAGE]""We are in the early stages of the Dodd-Frank implementation, but the work already done by the regulators reinforces the breadth and depth of these new standards,"" said Hank Prybylski, advisory leader, financial servicers, Ernst & Young. ""As the rule-making accelerates throughout 2011, institutions will need to monitor developments closely, continue to execute multi-disciplinary impact assessments, and focus on priority implementation projects.""
Titled ""_Positioning for change: U.S. financial reform six months later_"":http://www.ey.com/us/financialservices, the analysis indicates that financial firms are at different stages in their responses to Dodd-Frank. However, many of the largest firms are conducting impact
[COLUMN_BREAK]assessments and creating roadmaps and governance structures to guide compliance efforts.
Also, an increasing number of the largest financial services institutions are establishing governance and program management offices to oversee and manage their response to the legislation. Institutions are building processes to identify, assess, and respond to emerging requirements on a sustained basis over an extended period. Institutions have also prioritized responses and begun implementation.
According to the analysis, institutions should have an effective program in place to deal with evolving regulatory requirements, particularly in program management, derivatives and swap clearing, the Office of Financial Research and regulatory reporting impact on data, prudential supervision of Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs), IT and data management, and consumer protection.
""The first six months of the Dodd-Frank Act have shown us that complying with it demands changes across the enterprise,"" said Prybylski. ""This legislation has many moving parts and requires that many stakeholders work together. In a lot of cases, this means that financial institutions will need to undertake well-coordinated, multi-year projects to assimilate Dodd-Frank requirements effectively.""
Prybylski continued, ""Some firms have already accomplished a great deal in six months even though many of the legislation's specific implementation requirements remain to be defined. The institutions that secure a head start on this work are likely to be the ones to gain a competitive advantage when all is said and done.""