PACB Letter to Secretary Richman, DPW

April 18, 2005

The Honorable Estelle Richman
Secretary
Department of Public Welfare
333 H&WB
Harrisburg, PA 17105

RE: Increased Costs to Pennsylvania Community Banks for Financial Institutions Data Match Program

Dear Secretary Richman:

The Pennsylvania Association of Community Bankers (PACB) represents almost 200 community financial institutions. PACB appreciates the cooperation we have received from the department in the administration of the Financial Institutions Data Match program (FIDM). In particular, we have appreciated the efforts of Mr. Tom Sheaffer, Director of the Division of Program Development and Evaluation.

As you know, our members are reimbursed at $250.00 per quarter for providing the data required by the FIDM program. It is our understanding that the Commonwealth is now contracting with a new vendor, ACS. From what we understand, ACS provides one massive tape to vendors that our institutions utilize and this tape includes data from many states. This is a change from previous practice that included only Pennsylvania data.

As a result of the transmittal of this massive national data, it is estimated that our institutions will likely experience substantially higher costs for receiving the Pennsylvania data and those costs may approach $1,000 per quarter, substantially higher than the Commonwealth’s reimbursement of $250.

We are hopeful that the department will work with us for a solution to this problem and would respectfully suggest at least two possible solutions including:

Raising the $250 reimbursement level in recognition of the increased costs to community banks;
The department working with ACS to have ACS segregate and send only Pennsylvania data to vendors our members utilize. This would avoid the increased costs and extensive data sort now needed from the current ACS practice.

Thank you for your attention to this issue. We stand ready to discuss this further and look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Frank A. Pinto
President/CEO

cc: Thomas H. Sheaffer, DPW
Impacted Members
PACB Legislative Committee