State Regulator Achieves Another Successful Year with Roadmap Strategy

Successes include: continued online licensure, national accreditation, improved efficiencies

The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (“IDFPR”) built upon its 2015 and 2016 agency accomplishments in 2017 by continuing its strategic blueprint approach to modernizing operations and instilling lasting solutions. Under the leadership of Governor Bruce Rauner and Secretary Bryan A. Schneider, IDFPR continued its roadmap approach to articulate its vision for 2017 and enable the continued implementation of actionable, strategic projects.

The 2017 roadmap included a focus on streamlining internal processes to save state resources, implementation of online and digital technology modernizations and providing regulatory guidance and outreach.

“As we continue efforts to modernize our state’s regulatory offerings, strategic methodology is key to bringing our goals to fruition,” said Bryan A. Schneider, IDFPR Secretary. “Implementing a roadmap strategy has provided the proper structure, focus and support to continue our move to online licensure processes, while maintaining standards of excellence throughout our four divisions. As we look to 2018, we will continue this approach, guided by our principles of providing a state regulatory body that is responsive, innovative, transparent and efficient.”

2017 IDFPR Roadmap accomplishments included:

Moving over 80% of initial license applications online, ensuring a more user-friendly experience and faster licensing processing times;
Receiving a certificate of accreditation, verifying that the IDFPR’s Division of Banking maintains the highest standards and practices in state bank supervision set by the CSBS Accreditation Program;;
Hosting various stakeholder engagement events including Cybersecurity Conference, Day with Secretary Meetings, and Financial Innovation Office Hours;
Releasing final Digital Currency Regulatory Guidance to help promote innovation;
Being selected to participate in a multistate consortium to study occupational licensing policy, best practices and barriers.

Guided by the roadmap strategy, IDFPR leadership collected, scored, and ranked business proposals identified by each of our four Divisions and operational units. The resulting projects were prioritized by their alignment to the Department’s key criteria, and scheduled to begin (and in many cases end) over a year-long timeline based on resource availability. Utilizing a governance structure enabled the tracking of project reports and to formalize the flow of communication between project managers, involved business units, and executive staff.