Cybersecurity compliance for regulated firms in Iowa

Three parts

What a complete answer covers in Iowa

In Iowa, different licenses are overseen by different regulators. Where a rule below applies to one kind of firm, the text says so.

• The federal minimum. The FTC Safeguards Rule (16 CFR 314) treats a wide range of nonbank businesses as financial institutions, including mortgage lenders and servicers, consumer finance companies, tax preparers, collection firms, title and settlement agents, money services businesses, and dealers that arrange financing. A firm within its reach must keep a written security program, appoint a qualified individual to run it, and report to its board each year. Insurance producers and investment advisers fall outside the FTC's jurisdiction and answer to their own regulators, and banks and credit unions answer to their prudential regulators under the interagency information-security guidelines. Which side of that line a firm falls on depends on what it does and who supervises it.
• What a license adds in Iowa. Conditions attach to whatever a firm is licensed or registered to do, and they differ widely from one type of license to another. Mortgage is the area where most of our work lies, and in Iowa mortgage licensing is overseen by the Iowa Division of Banking (Department of Insurance and Financial Services). Servicing four or more mortgage loans on Iowa residential property makes a company a 'mortgage banker' under Iowa Code §535B.1(5), so servicers need a Mortgage Banker License from the Iowa Division of Banking, applied for through NMLS, unless an exemption applies, such as for federally insured banks and credit unions. Other licenses are overseen by other regulators and carry conditions of their own.
• What Iowa law requires after a breach. Iowa's breach-notification law (Iowa Code §715C.2) sets out what must happen, and how quickly, when residents' personal information is exposed.
• Your counterparties' requirements. Investors, warehouse lenders, carriers, underwriters and institutional clients send questionnaires of their own, and their reviews decide whether a relationship continues. Add the laws of each state where your customers live, and that is the list a firm has to answer. Our assessment begins by producing it, matched to your firm and with each source cited.

Also relevant in Iowa: When a breach affects more than 500 Iowa residents, the Attorney General's consumer protection division must receive written notice within five business days of consumer notification (Iowa Code §715C.2(8)), one of the shortest regulator deadlines in the country.

General information, not legal advice. Which of these requirements reach your firm depends on its circumstances. The assessment answers that question and names the source of each finding.