The New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) has launched the DFS Connect platform, a portal that will centralize the department’s interactions with regulated entities and consumers.
According to DFS Superintendent Adrienne Harris, DFS Connect is a “pivotal example” of how her agency is “innovating to enhance regulatory oversight while making it easier for New Yorkers and businesses to engage directly with the agency,”
Over the past three years, she said DFS has invested in human capital, technological resources, and streamlining of processes to be able to better respond as a regulator in an evolving financial landscape.
Over the next three years, the single, streamlined DFS Connect digital portal will replace outdated, fragmented systems. DFS believes this will “enhance efficiency, improve oversight, and ensure better service to businesses and consumers.” By 2027, all consumer complaints and regulatory functions agency-wide, such as licensing, renewals, examinations, financial statements and legal filings, will be handled through DFS Connect.
With DFS Connect, New Yorkers can now submit complaints about prescription drug costs, pharmacy benefit managers, and drug manufacturers. After users submit a complaint, they can track the status in real-time and communicate directly with DFS staff about their issue.
Since 2022, DFS has prioritized modernizing its regulatory infrastructure. This effort has included a technology overhaul, the creation of the agency’s first data governance office, and the hiring of the first-ever chief technology officer and chief risk officer.
According to Harris, these steps have allowed DFS to “enhance its analytical capabilities, implement real-time risk monitoring, and improve decision-making processes.”
DFS has also invested in its workforce with the hiring and promoting of more than 1,000 individuals over the past three years, including the first class of financial services examiner trainees since 2018. Additionally, the department has established a climate division and a pharmacy benefit unit. It has also created an executive leadership role dedicated to internal operations.
DFS said these staffing investments, combined with business process redesign efforts, have eliminated backlogs that had persisted for years. Since 2023, the agency has cleared more than 30,000 backlogged regulatory filings.
DFS was established in 2011 with the merging of the state’s former departments of insurance and banking. DFS currently has a staff of 1,359 staff and a budget of $345 million.
Today DFS regulates the activities of more than 3,000 financial institutions with nearly $10 trillion in assets. These include more than 1,900 insurance companies with assets of more than $6.4 trillion, including property/casualty insurance companies, life insurance companies, health insurers and managed care organizations, and pharmacy benefit managers.
DFS also regulates more than 1,300 banks and financial institutions with assets totaling more than $3.3 trillion, including 120 foreign banks and 15 global systemically important banks, credit unions, money services businesses, credit reporting agencies, and student loan servicers.
The department was the first U.S. regulator to start licensing virtual currency companies and has since developed a virtual currency regulatory framework.
Source: New York State Department of Financial Services
Topics New York
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