Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation

2008 Annual Report

III. Performance Results Summary

Program Evaluation
Program evaluations are designed to improve the operational effectiveness of the FDIC’s programs and ensure that objectives are met. These evaluations are often led by the Office of Enterprise Risk Management and are generally interdivisional, collaborative efforts involving management and staff from the affected program(s).

The Corporation’s 2008 Annual Performance Plan contained several objectives aimed at ensuring that the FDIC would continue to address key corporate issues, including the upgrade of the FDIC’s New Financial Environment (NFE), privacy, shared folders access and security, and asset management. The following are the results of the Corporation’s program evaluation activities for 2008.

The FDIC is in the process of both upgrading NFE, its state-of-the-art financial management system, and changing the system platform on which it sits. The upgrade of the PeopleSoft products to release 9.0 and the change from the IBM mainframe structure with DB2 database to an individual application server structure with the Oracle database will allow the FDIC certain advances within the financial management and reporting arena. With the newer version of the PeopleSoft products, the FDIC will see increased business functionality and extended software support. Additionally, the change in platform will bring less system downtime, increased data scalability and a more sustainable environment for future enhancements and upgrades. The NFE software upgrade and platform change are expected to be completed by mid-2009.

In 2008, FDIC developed an Operational Review Program for the post-closing asset management function. Guidance was also developed for asset managers on participation loans and home equity lines of credit. This guidance ensures consistency in post-closing activities.

During 2008, the FDIC organized operations and support for major initiatives of the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program. The results of these initiatives were meant to strengthen market stability, improve the strength of financial institutions and enhance market liquidity. Going forward, efforts of the FDIC will be geared toward further defining operations and controls, management reporting and administration of this new program.

The shared folders access and security initiative, started in 2008, is a corporate-wide effort to reduce the inventory of electronic folders and improve security management of the remaining folders necessary for the Corporation’s ongoing work. This effort will continue in 2009.

The Corporation enhanced its methodology in 2008 to compare IT development projects objectively for those projects spending operating funds. This methodology identified preliminary business value, benefits expected from the project, and risk recognition. The Chief Information Office Council (CIO Council) used this methodology successfully for its 2009 selection process. Use of this common methodology at the CIO Council level in conjunction with what is done at the Capital Investment Review Committee level enhances the Corporation’s capital planning and investment management maturity and enables the Corporation to more strategically select its IT investments.

In 2008, the FDIC, being concerned about the safety of FDIC-managed receivership and subsidiary funds, researched alternatives for its banking and investment needs for receivership-related matters. After careful review, the FDIC obtained banking services from the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York, which is able to handle critical accounts and services needed by the FDIC.

During 2008, two Post Project Reviews (PPRs) were conducted to improve the Corporation’s future systems development efforts by reviewing recently implemented projects. Among the several significant reviews completed in 2008 were reviews of the Central Data Repository (CDR) and the Corporate Human Resources Information System (CHRIS) Time and Attendance project. Most significant is that the lessons learned and best practices identified in conducting the PPRs were rolled back into front end processes and requirements for future projects.

Program evaluation activities in 2009 will focus on key corporate issues, including continuing work on the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program and issues relating to contract management oversight and staff analysis.