The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) has announced that the organization has upgraded the functions and features of the InfoBase for the FFIEC Information Technology Examination Handbook (IT Handbook). The IT Handbook consists of 11 booklets covering a variety of technology and technology-related risk management guidance for financial institutions and examiners.

The new architecture provides the FFIEC member agencies with new capabilities, including the ability to make updates on a more frequent basis. This new architecture will enable the agencies to respond to changes in technology and the risk environment on an as-needed basis rather than waiting for the next revision of a particular booklet or booklets.

Included in the recent upgrade is a “What’s New” function on the InfoBase home page that may be used to monitor recent changes and, going forward, to access a historical listing of all changes.

As a result of this new dynamic environment, the individual booklets will no longer be available in hard copy. In addition to reducing costs and saving resources, users will now have the ability to select the materials they wish to print–from a single page to the entire booklet.

The IT Handbook is a collaborative effort of the Information Technology Subcommittee of the FFIEC’s Task Force on Supervision. The Information Technology Subcommittee promotes uniform and effective information technology-related policies and supervisory programs for financial institutions and their service providers. An electronic version of the IT Handbook Series is available through the FFIEC.

The FFIEC was established in March 1979 to prescribe uniform principles, standards, and report forms and to promote uniformity in the supervision of financial institutions. The Council has six voting members: the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the National Credit Union Administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the State Liaison Committee. The Council’s activities are supported by interagency task forces and by an advisory State Liaison Committee, comprised of five representatives of state agencies that supervise financial institutions.