ABA Benchmarking and Survey Research

What is benchmarking and how would it benefit my organization?

Traditionally, organizations compare their own performance measures over time as a good indication of the rate of improvement within the organization. However, if my organization is improving, how do I know the competition is not improving faster?

The goal of benchmarking is to measure the quality of a firm's policies, products, programs, strategies, etc., and compare them with standard measurements, or similar measurements. It helps to improve the operating efficiency of a firm by helping to expose it to new ideas and new ways of doing things, along with demonstrating that those new ideas and ways of doing things are effective, as their competitors are using them.

It takes time to develop metrics, create systems to map and track data, analyze the data, write reports and manage the projects. Yet, the costs of benchmarking are more than offset by the benefits received.

What is the ABA Peer Benchmarking Program and how can it help improve my bank?

The ABA Peer Benchmarking program can be split into two sub-programs, one is the Deposit Account Fraud Working Group and other is the Operational Risk Working Group. The Deposit Account Fraud program consists of five separate reporting tracks relating to check, debit card, online, and new account fraud from which ABA member banks can choose to participate in.

The operational risk committee facilitates a confidential exchange of operational loss data among peer banks. The purposes of sharing operational loss data are to assist in benchmarking by business line and loss event type among peer institutions, and to assist in complying with the regulatory requirement of gathering external loss event data as part of the operational risk management framework. All of these surveys are conducted on a quarterly basis.

In addition to the quarterly surveys, participating members are eligible to participate in the National Best Practices Discussion Group. This conference call series provides a forum for participating members to discuss and examine fraud prevention systems and techniques.  Also, participating members have the opportunity to propose new peer bank surveys for benchmarking purposes and are invited to the annual ABA Face-to-Face Deposit Account Fraud Conference. The ABA Peer Benchmarking Program is not just a set of metrics; it is program that allows banks to come and learn from each other.

To participate, a bank must be an active ABA member, be willing to commit to at least four consecutive quarters of reporting, be able to map their data collection categories to the ABA's categories, and pay a modest participation fee for select surveys.

The ABA Benchmarking Program staff, along with an advisory committee of bankers, is committed to continuing to improve and enhance our benchmarking efforts in order to keep up with new developments in the industry and meet the needs of our participants.

Your comments and questions are very important to us.
Please send an email to Benchmarking and Survey Research or call us at 1-800-BANKERS.

Last updated: 1/18/11