Background Investigations

Waivers

The OCC, in individual cases, may waive the standard background checks, if the performance of the check would be redundant or would not serve the OCC’s purposes for background investigations. However, Licensing staff will document all background check waivers, including the rationale for the waiver.

The OCC routinely may waive background checks for filers, if the filer is serving as a director or a senior (or executive) officer of an “eligible” depository institution, [1] the institution’s current regulatory agency reports no adverse information, and a search on EARS and the FinCEN databases reveal no derogatory information.

If the OCC is ready to approve an application for which it has not received responses on all of its background check inquiries and there is no reason to believe that any detrimental information will be forthcoming from the unanswered inquiries, the OCC may approve the application by inserting the following reminder into the approval letter:

Background checks requested by the OCC have not been received yet from (insert appropriate number) source(s). While we have decided not to delay action pending receipt of these responses, continued service of the affected individual(s) will be dependent on satisfactory completion of the background investigation process.

1.
An “eligible” depository institution includes national banks, state banks, or federal or state savings associations that: 1) are well capitalized as defined in 12 CFR 6.4(b)(1); 2) have composite ratings of 1 or 2 under the Uniform Financial Institutions Rating System; 3) have Community Reinvestment Act, 12 USC 2901 et seq., ratings of “Outstanding” or “Satisfactory”; and 4) are not subject to a cease and desist order, consent order, formal written agreement, or Prompt Corrective Action directive (see 12 CFR 6, subpart B) or, if subject to any such order, agreement, or directive, is informed in writing by the OCC that the bank still may be treated as an “eligible bank” for a corporate transaction. The third (CRA) factor does not apply to an uninsured bank or branch or a special purpose bank covered by 12 CFR 25.11(c)(3).
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