Thank You!

Thank you!

Next month marks the 10^th anniversary of my joining Compliance Services Group, and I want to take a moment and thank you all for trusting us for your auditing and consulting needs.

When we started in June of 2012, Northwest Compliance Group was focused on helping a limited number of Washington state institutions navigate the regulatory landscape. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (or the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, if you wish) had just started the year before, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was two years old, and TRID rules were on the horizon.

In 2012, my daughter was still in high school and just starting to think about boys. My son was working his way through college (Go Cougs!), and COVID wasn’t in anyone’s mind except science fiction writers.

Since then, we have grown to helping institutions of all sizes, locations, and types – banks, credit unions, mortgage brokers, trust companies, short-term lenders, and FinTechs. You name it, we can help. Late in 2016, John Bley took over the helm, and in 2017, we joined forces with Cliff Cook’s group, Compliance Services Inc., and changed our name to reflect the combined forces. Both John and Cliff are well known in financial services, as John was Washington State’s first director of the Department of Financial Institutions, and Cliff is well known for his knowledge of Truth-in-Lending and APR calculation compliance. If you ever have the chance to attend one of John or Cliff’s presentations, I highly recommend it. (Although, if it is John’s, you might hear about the Green Bay Packers more than you would expect to.)

Today, we have one of the best group of folks that I have ever had the honor of working with. Our auditors are always looking for ways to protect our clients and are some of the most knowledgeable people that I know. If they are not currently involved in an audit or a review, you can find them in training, learning the new and changed requirements and best practices.

Today, we are still dealing with TRID requirements, and now have crypto and fintech as the new trigger terms. My personal life has changed quite a bit over the last 10 years too. My daughter has graduated from college (Go Wildcats!) and is teaching special education. She is getting married in June and working on her master’s degree. My son is happily married, and his daughter, Sophie, loves her Grumpa very much. (Grumpa has a whole stash of Sophie treats for when she comes over.)

I am looking forward to the next 10 years.

And for our office manager, Bree – who keeps everything running smoothly, Go Dawgs!

Let us know if you have any compliance related questions or need to get an audit scheduled.

-James McKinney

Please be advised that CSG provides financial services compliance audit and consulting services to our clients.  The services that we provide include certain tasks that may be characterized as “law-related services” under Rule 5.7 of the Rules of Professional Conduct governing lawyers.  Since some of our employees are lawyers with an active bar license but are NOT engaged in the private practice of law, that Rule requires us to make disclosures clarifying that the services we perform may be law-related services, but they are not legal services.  Because they are not legal services, those services and our relationship will not be governed by the Rules of Professional Conduct that guide the client-lawyer relationship, such as rules applicable to privileged communications and prohibitions of conflicts of interest.  Notwithstanding this disclaimer, we will continue to govern our relationship with you using reasonable ethical and professional standards that are expected to meet your expectations.