It also shows the U.S. supervisor for each office. The Six Supervisory Products Are to Provide a Wide Range of Supervisory Information

The six supervisory products of the FBO Program are to provide information about the home countries of the FBOs, the FBOs themselves, and the FBOs’ operations in the United States. The six products are
Review of Home Country Financial System,
Review of Significant Home Country Accounting Policies and Practices,
Strength-of-Support Assessment,
Comprehensive Examination Plan, and
Summary of Condition and Combined Rating. We refer to the first two products, which focus on a country’s financial system and accounting policies and practices, as “the country reports.” The contents of the six supervisory products are summarized in table 3. The FBO Program is to provide for the coordination of examination schedules through the development of an annual comprehensive examination plan for each FBO with banking offices licensed by more than one supervisory agency and/or with significant U.S. nonbanking activities.Other U.S. supervisors of FBO offices in the United States are to provide responsible Federal Reserve Banks with a copy of their preliminary examination schedules. The overall assessment of an FBO’s combined U.S. operations is intended to provide the FBO and the U.S. supervisory agencies with a view of the overall condition of the FBO’s U.S. operations and help put into context the strengths and weaknesses of individual offices. Supervisors Identified Benefits of the Program

Although the FBO Program has not been fully implemented, FRS staff and other banking supervisors told us of a number of benefits of the program—most importantly, improved communication and cooperation among supervisors and bank management, both domestic and foreign, and improved access to information about FBOs and their home countries. These officials said such preparation has helped them supervise the U.S. operations of foreign banks. This program is designed to put all of the FBO Program products on-line. Conclusions

Banking supervisors have made progress in implementing the FBO Program. At the same time, supervisors have just begun to use the information in SOSA and country reports to improve supervision and enforcement, and some supervisors indicated some skepticism about how useful the information from SOSA and country reports will be in improving FBO oversight. The various Federal Reserve Banks are developing different formats and strategies for integrating the information into the supervisory process. In addition, we identified a number of weaknesses in SOSA and country reports that could limit the program’s effectiveness, including inconsistent, incomplete, or outdated information, as well as SOSA rankings that did not appear to be justified by information in the report. GAO Comments

1. 2. 4. 5. 6.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the oversight of the U.S. operations of foreign banking organizations (FBO), focusing on the: (1) FBO program; and (2) banking supervisors' progress in implementing this program.

What GAO Found

GAO noted that: (1) the FBO Program focuses on integrating into supervisory procedures a common understanding of a given FBO in its entirety, including policies and practices in the FBO's home country as well as the overall condition of the FBO's combined U.S. operations; (2) the program calls for coordinated development and common use of five new products; (3) GAO refers to two of these as "the country reports"; (4) one country report is to provide information about the financial system and the supervisory and governmental policies in the FBO's home country, and the other is to provide information about significant accounting policies and practices in the home country; (5) a third product, the Strength-of-Support Assessment (SOSA), which is to be based on the country reports and other financial data, is to provide analysis and a ranking to reflect the U.S. supervisors' judgment about the FBO's ability to provide its U.S. operations necessary financial and managerial support; (6) a fourth product, the Summary of Condition and Combined Rating, is designed to provide FBO management and U.S. supervisors with an overall assessment of the FBO's U.S. operations; (7) the last new supervisory product, an annual comprehensive examination plan, is intended to better coordinate examinations of U.S. offices of FBOs with multiple U.S. banking operations and/or significant U.S. nonbanking operations; (8) in GAO's review of the FBO Program, GAO found that banking supervisors had made progress in implementing the program and had begun to realize benefits from it; (9) however, GAO also identified areas where improvements could be made; (10) supervisors identified some broad benefits of the program, particularly increased communication and cooperation among supervisors and improved access to information about FBOs and their home countries; (11) at the same time, comments of supervisory officials and staff indicated some skepticism about how useful the information from the SOSA reports will be in improving FBO supervision; (12) however, they also said that the various Federal Reserve Banks are developing different formats and strategies for integrating the information into the supervisory process; and (13) in addition, GAO identified a number of weaknesses in SOSA and country reports that could limit the program's effectiveness, including inconsistent, incomplete, or outdated information.