Who Needs a Contingency Funding Plan? FINRA, OCC & Interagency Requirements Explained

TL;DR

• If you are a bank, thrift, or larger credit union, contingency funding plan requirements are already here — not theoretical, not optional.
• The baseline U.S. expectation comes from the 2010 Interagency Policy Statement on Funding and Liquidity Risk Management, reinforced by the 2023 addendum after the bank failures of 2023.
• Broker-dealers are different: FINRA has not finalized Rule 4610, but its concept proposal and oversight reports make clear that firms with significant liquidity exposure should already have credible liquidity governance, stress testing, and contingency funding arrangements.

Yes, You Probably Need a CFP

Here’s the short answer practitioners actually want: if your institution can face a liquidity squeeze, your regulator expects you to plan for it.

For banks, that expectation is already embedded in supervisory guidance. For federally insured credit unions, it is written directly into 12 CFR § 741.12. For broker-dealers, the rule set is less clean today, but FINRA has been telegraphing the same message for years: weak liquidity management is a supervisory problem, and “we’ll figure it out in a crisis” is not a strategy.

That matters because teams still make the same mistake: they assume contingency funding plan requirements only apply to giant banks. That was never really true, and it is definitely not true after Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic.

If you are the person who inherited liquidity risk, ALCO reporting, treasury governance, second-line oversight, or exam remediation, this is the map.

What do regulators actually require?

At a high level, regulators expect a contingency funding plan to answer five questions:

1. What stress events could cut off normal funding?
2. What early warning indicators tell you stress is building?
3. What backup funding sources are actually available?
4. Who has authority to escalate and act?
5. Have you tested whether the plan works in real life?

The exact legal form differs by regulator. Sometimes it is a formal rule. Sometimes it is interagency guidance that examiners treat as a baseline supervisory expectation. Either way, the operational burden lands in the same place: treasury, finance, risk, compliance, and the board need a plan that is current, actionable, and tested.

Which institutions need a contingency funding plan?

Here is the practitioner version.

Institution type	Primary regulator	Current CFP expectation	Primary source
National banks and federal savings associations	OCC	Yes — expected as part of sound liquidity risk management	OCC Bulletin 2010-13, OCC Bulletin 2023-25
State member banks	Federal Reserve	Yes — expected under interagency guidance	SR 10-6
State nonmember banks	FDIC	Yes — expected for FDIC-supervised institutions	FDIC FIL-13-2010, FDIC FIL-39-2023
Federally insured credit unions under $50 million in assets	NCUA	Not a full CFP, but must maintain a basic written liquidity policy and contingent liquidity sources	12 CFR § 741.12(a)
Federally insured credit unions $50 million or more	NCUA	Yes — formal contingency funding plan required	12 CFR § 741.12(b) and (d)
Federally insured credit unions $250 million or more	NCUA	CFP required plus documented access to at least one federal contingent liquidity source	NCUA guidance on § 741.12
Broker-dealers with large customer/counterparty exposure	FINRA	No final Rule 4610 yet, but FINRA has proposed it and already examines liquidity risk management practices	FINRA Regulatory Notice 23-11, 2024 FINRA Annual Regulatory Oversight Report
Internationally active banks	Basel / home-country supervisors	Yes — robust CFP expected under Basel liquidity principles	BCBS Principles for Sound Liquidity Risk Management and Supervision

That table is the overview. The nuance matters, though, because “required” means different things depending on who supervises you.

OCC contingency funding plan requirements: what national banks should expect

For OCC-supervised institutions, the starting point is OCC Bulletin 2010-13, which transmitted the interagency policy statement on funding and liquidity risk management. The guidance emphasized cash flow projections, diversified funding sources, stress testing, a cushion of liquid assets, and a formal, well-developed contingency funding plan as primary tools for managing liquidity risk.

Then 2023 happened.

In July 2023, the OCC joined the Fed, FDIC, and NCUA in issuing OCC Bulletin 2023-25, an addendum that specifically reminded banks to:

• assess funding stability and maintain a broad range of funding sources;
• ensure access to contingent funding sources, recognizing some lines may disappear under stress;
• review and revise contingency funding plans more frequently as conditions change; and
• maintain operational readiness to borrow from federal funding facilities such as the Federal Reserve discount window.

That last point matters more than most plans admit. Post-2023, a CFP that lists the discount window but has no pre-positioned collateral, no executed borrowing documentation, no test borrowing history, and no owner for the process is a paper exercise.

So what does that mean operationally for OCC-regulated banks?

At most institutions, the minimum defensible setup looks like this:

Control area	What examiners will expect to see
Governance	Board-approved liquidity risk framework and board-reviewed CFP
Ownership	Named first-line owner (usually Treasury/ALM) plus second-line challenge from Risk
Stress scenarios	Idiosyncratic, market-wide, and combined stress scenarios
Funding source inventory	Discount window, FHLB, repo, brokered deposits, unsecured lines, asset sales, with capacity and constraints documented
Triggers	Quantitative early warning indicators and escalation thresholds
Testing	Evidence of tabletop exercises and operational testing of funding access
Change management	Updates after material balance-sheet, funding, market, or strategy changes

If you run a community bank and think this sounds like “large bank stuff,” the OCC explicitly said the 2023 addendum applies to community banks. Simpler balance sheet, simpler plan. Not no plan.

Federal Reserve requirements: state member banks and holding company expectations

For Federal Reserve-supervised institutions, SR 10-6 attaches the same interagency policy statement and says the Fed expects supervised financial institutions to manage liquidity risk with processes and systems commensurate with their complexity, risk profile, and scope of operations.

The practical point many teams miss: the Fed did not limit this to a narrow treasury function. SR 10-6 also says the interagency guidance targets insured depository institutions, including state member banks, and that the basic principles also apply to bank holding companies on a consolidated basis.

That creates a real governance implication:

• The bank needs a workable CFP.
• The holding company needs to understand where liquidity can and cannot move.
• Intercompany transfer assumptions need to be realistic, not wishful.

If the parent assumes it can pull cash from the bank in a stress event, but legal, regulatory, or operational constraints would block that transfer, your liquidity framework is already broken.

A good Fed-facing CFP should address legal-entity reality

This is where practitioners earn their keep. A credible plan should document:

• which entity owns each contingent funding source;
• what collateral sits where;
• whether the parent, bank, broker-dealer, or other subsidiary can access the source directly;
• what internal approvals are needed; and
• what legal or regulatory frictions could slow movement of funds.

That is the difference between a CFP that looks polished in a deck and one that survives a real exam.

FDIC requirements: state nonmember banks are not exempt

For FDIC-supervised institutions, FIL-13-2010 carried the same interagency guidance and explicitly highlighted a well-developed, documented, board-reviewed contingency funding plan as a core liquidity management tool.

After the 2023 bank failures, the FDIC doubled down in FIL-39-2023. The updated guidance reminded FDIC-supervised institutions to:

• maintain actionable CFPs covering a range of stress scenarios;
• assess funding stability and maintain broad funding sources;
• understand the operational requirements for contingent funding access and test that access regularly;
• keep collateral available in an amount appropriate for contingency needs; and
• revise CFPs as market conditions and strategy change.

The key word there is actionable.

Not descriptive. Not aspirational. Actionable.

What examiners are really asking at FDIC-supervised banks

In practice, the exam conversation tends to revolve around a handful of issues:

1. Can you access funding fast enough?
2. Have you tested the channels you say you will use?
3. Do your collateral assumptions reflect actual encumbrance and mobility constraints?
4. Would your runoff assumptions still hold in a mobile, social-media-driven stress event?
5. Did you update the plan after 2023, or are you still using pre-SVB assumptions?

If your CFP still treats stress as a slow-moving, branch-based deposit runoff event, it is outdated.

NCUA contingency funding plan requirements: the clearest rule set of the bunch

Credit unions actually get one of the clearest structures because 12 CFR § 741.12 creates tiered requirements based on asset size.

According to NCUA’s guidance on how to comply with § 741.12:

• Under $50 million: maintain a basic written liquidity policy and list contingent liquidity sources.
• $50 million or more: maintain both a written liquidity policy and a contingency funding plan that clearly sets out strategies for addressing liquidity shortfalls in emergencies.
• $250 million or more: maintain the policy and CFP plus establish access to at least one federal contingent liquidity source, meaning the Federal Reserve discount window and/or the Central Liquidity Facility (CLF).

That tiering is helpful because it gives smaller institutions proportionality without giving them a free pass.

What should a credit union CFP include?

At minimum:

CFP element	What NCUA-supervised teams should document
Stress events	Share outflows, funding market disruptions, collateral haircuts, operational disruption during liquidity events
Contingent sources	Federal liquidity source access, borrowing lines, liquid asset sale options, correspondent capacity
Governance	Board approval, management responsibilities, escalation chain
Readiness	Agreements, resolutions, collateral prep, test-borrow evidence where applicable
Monitoring	Liquidity metrics and warning triggers tied to management action

For credit unions above the $250 million threshold, this is where many teams get caught flat-footed. Establishing “access” to a federal source is not just naming it in the plan. It means doing the setup work early enough that the source is usable under pressure.

FINRA Rule 4610: what broker-dealers should do while it is still only a proposal

Broker-dealers sit in the messy middle.

There is not a final FINRA rule today that universally requires a contingency funding plan the same way bank and credit union regimes do. But it is wrong to conclude there is no regulatory expectation.

In Regulatory Notice 23-11, issued June 12, 2023, FINRA solicited comment on a concept proposal for Rule 4610. The proposal described a potential rule covering three core areas:

• liquidity stress testing;
• contingent funding plans; and
• a requirement to maintain sufficient liquidity on a current basis.

FINRA said the proposal would apply to firms meeting the criteria for filing the Supplemental Liquidity Schedule (SLS), plus members that carry the customer accounts of other broker-dealers even if they do not file the SLS.

That means the target population is not every tiny introducing firm. It is the firms with the largest customer and counterparty exposures — the places where a liquidity failure could move fast and hit clients hard.

Why this still matters before final adoption

Because FINRA is already supervising the problem.

In FINRA’s 2024 Annual Regulatory Oversight Report on Liquidity Risk Management, the regulator flagged:

• insufficient stresses on clearing deposit requirements;
• no contingency funding plans;
• inaccurate or incomplete SLS reporting; and
• weak governance around liquidity monitoring and contingency actions.

FINRA specifically described an observed problem where firms failed to develop contingency funding plans that identified:

• sources of liquidity for market or idiosyncratic stress;
• the staff responsible for enacting the plan; and
• standards for how funding would be used.

So even without a final Rule 4610, firms with material liquidity exposure should treat this as an active exam issue now.

What the 2023 interagency addendum changed for everybody else

The 2023 interagency addendum did not create CFP expectations from scratch. It sharpened them.

The change in tone matters.

Before 2023, some institutions treated contingency funding plans as annual governance paperwork. After the failures of SVB, Signature, and First Republic, regulators made four things much more explicit:

1. Your funding sources must be diverse enough to survive real stress.
2. You should assume some contingent sources may fail when you need them.
3. Testing access matters as much as listing access.
4. Discount window readiness is now a front-and-center supervisory expectation.

That is not just a drafting issue. It changes how you should build your plan.

How to tell whether your institution’s CFP is actually compliant

Here is a blunt self-assessment table you can use today.

Question	If the answer is “no”	Why it matters
Is the CFP board-approved and current?	Governance gap	Examiners will treat the plan as stale and low-credibility
Have stress assumptions been updated post-2023?	Scenario gap	Old runoff assumptions likely understate real-world speed of outflows
Are contingent funding sources ranked by speed, capacity, cost, and operational readiness?	Execution gap	You do not know what you can actually use first
Have you tested discount window, CLF, FHLB, repo, or other key channels where relevant?	Readiness gap	A source that is untested may be unavailable when needed
Are responsibilities assigned by role and name?	Accountability gap	Crisis execution will stall at the worst moment
Are legal-entity constraints documented?	Structural gap	Parent and subsidiary liquidity assumptions may be wrong
Do risk, treasury, finance, and compliance all use the same version of the plan?	Coordination gap	You will lose time reconciling conflicting assumptions during stress

If you got multiple “no” answers, the issue is not whether you technically have a plan. The issue is whether you have one that would survive supervision.

30/60/90-day remediation roadmap if your regulator asked for a CFP tomorrow

Days 1-30: establish the baseline

Owners: Treasury or Finance (first line), Risk (second line), Compliance for regulatory mapping

Deliverables:

• inventory all current and contingent funding sources;
• map primary regulator and applicable guidance/rules;
• identify existing borrowing agreements, collateral arrangements, and missing documentation;
• collect the current liquidity policy, stress tests, ALCO materials, and board reporting;
• identify whether the institution already has discount window, CLF, FHLB, or repo readiness gaps.

Days 31-60: build the actionable plan

Owners: Treasury/ALM drafts, Risk challenges, Legal reviews legal-entity assumptions

Deliverables:

• write or refresh the CFP;
• define green/yellow/red warning triggers;
• document scenario assumptions for idiosyncratic, market-wide, and combined stress;
• rank contingent funding sources by speed, capacity, cost, stigma, and operational constraints;
• assign decision rights and escalation paths;
• align board and ALCO reporting cadence.

Days 61-90: test and govern

Owners: Treasury executes testing, Risk validates, Internal Audit or independent review observes where appropriate

Deliverables:

• run a tabletop exercise;
• perform operational testing for key funding channels where feasible;
• document lessons learned and remediation actions;
• obtain board approval;
• set a quarterly or event-driven review trigger.

That is the pace regulators increasingly expect. Not “we’ll revisit at annual policy review.”

Where this fits in the CFP series

If you have not read the first article yet, start with What Is a Contingency Funding Plan? A Plain-Language Guide for Risk & Compliance Teams. It lays out the basic components, why post-2023 liquidity planning is different, and how the rest of this 13-part series fits together.

This is article 2 of 13 in the CFP series.

So what?

The real question is not “does my regulator technically require a contingency funding plan?”

The real question is: if your primary funding sources tighten next week, could your institution get cash fast enough without improvising?

For banks and larger credit unions, regulators have already answered that question: you need a credible CFP.

For broker-dealers, the direction of travel is obvious. FINRA may still be in proposal mode on Rule 4610, but its exam messaging is already there.

So if your current plan is a stale appendix, a generic consultant document, or a list of funding sources nobody has tested, that is your work queue.

Not next quarter. Now.

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Need a defensible framework fast? The Enterprise Risk Management Framework (ERMF) gives you governance structure, risk documentation, and board-ready templates you can use to build a CFP that stands up to real scrutiny.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Are contingency funding plan requirements the same for OCC, Fed, and FDIC supervised banks?

Broadly yes on the core expectation, because all three rely on the same 2010 interagency policy statement and reinforced that expectation through 2023 guidance updates. The wording and supervisory packaging differ, but the operating expectation is similar: maintain a documented, board-reviewed, actionable contingency funding plan supported by stress testing, diversified funding sources, and operational readiness.

Do all credit unions need a formal contingency funding plan?

No. Under 12 CFR § 741.12, federally insured credit unions under $50 million in assets need a basic written liquidity policy and contingent liquidity sources, but not a full CFP. Credit unions at $50 million or more need a formal contingency funding plan, and those at $250 million or more must also establish access to at least one federal contingent liquidity source.

Is FINRA Rule 4610 in effect yet?

Not as a final rule based on the current public record. Regulatory Notice 23-11 was a concept proposal seeking comment. But firms should not mistake “not final” for “not important.” FINRA’s own oversight reporting shows that liquidity governance, stress testing, and contingency funding plans are already active supervisory focus areas.