Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB) Act
Many companies collect personal information from their customers, including names, addresses, and phone numbers; bank and credit card account numbers; income and credit histories; and Social Security numbers. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB) Act requires companies defined under the law as “financial institutions” to ensure the security and confidentiality of this type of information. The definition of “financial institution” under the Act is broad, and includes many businesses that may not normally describe themselves that way. The GLB Act applies to all businesses, regardless of size, that are “significantly engaged” in providing financial products or services. These include, for example, check-cashing businesses, payday lenders, mortgage brokers, nonbank lenders, real estate appraisers, and professional tax preparers.
The
Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) is a formal
interagency body empowered to prescribe uniform principles, standards, and
report forms for the federal examination of financial institutions by the
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB),
the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC),
the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA),
the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the Office of Thrift Supervision
(OTS), and to make recommendations to promote uniformity in the supervision of
financial institutions.