Cybersecurity compliance for regulated firms in Maine

Three parts

What a complete answer covers in Maine

In Maine, 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 Maine. 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 Maine mortgage licensing is overseen by the Maine Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection (Department of Professional and Financial Regulation). Maine has no standalone mortgage-servicer license; servicing is covered by the supervised lender license. Any company that makes, takes assignment of or services loans secured by an interest in real estate must hold a Supervised Lender License from the Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection, filed through NMLS, under the Maine Consumer Credit Code (9-A M.R.S. §2-301), unless it is a supervised financial organization such as a bank or credit union. Other licenses are overseen by other regulators and carry conditions of their own.
• What Maine law requires after a breach. Maine's breach-notification law (10 M.R.S. §1346 et seq.) 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 Maine: Maine allows 30 days from becoming aware of a breach to send notices, one of the shortest firm deadlines in the country. Regulated financial firms report to their own regulator within the Department of Professional and Financial Regulation rather than to the Attorney General (10 M.R.S. §1348).

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.