OCC Updates Risk Assessment Guidance

OCC Risk Management

On December 3, the OCC revised its Comptroller’s Handbook to include updated guidance regarding its risk assessment system (RAS). The RAS guidance clarifies the relationship between RAS and the Uniform Financial Institutions Rating System known as CAMELS. In addition, the guidance revises the definition of banking risk and applies a single definition – “the potential that events will have an adverse effect on a bank’s current or projected financial condition and resilience” – to all categories. Finally, the guidance expands the quality of risk management assessment to include a category of “insufficient,” between the already existing categories of “satisfactory” and “weak,” and also expands the assessment of strategic and reputation risk to consider both quantity of risk and quality of risk management.