English
Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions Loses Accreditation
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The Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions (OCIF, in Spanish) lost last September its accreditation with the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS), an entity that monitors the procedures and operations of state agencies that regulate financial institutions in the United States, the CSBS confirmed to the Center for Investigative Journalism (CPI, in Spanish). According to the OCIF, the Washington, D.C.-based organization identified deficiencies in its bank regulatory and examination program that led to the loss of accreditation. “As OCIF’s participation in CSBS’s bank accreditation program is entirely voluntary, the action has no effect on OCIF’s ability or authority to continue to perform its bank supervisory and regulatory functions, as established by law,” the main regulator of Puerto Rico’s banking industry said in a written statement. When asked by the CPI, the CSBS refused to give the reasons why the OCIF lost the accreditation it had had since 1994. The loss of accreditation comes amid the pending trial in federal court against former Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced, who is accused of having dismissed former OCIF Commissioner George Joyner in 2020 to appoint Víctor Rodríguez Bonilla, who had allegedly been chosen for that position by the president of one of the banks regulated by the OCIF.
