Heartland Compliance started in the mid 1980s. At that time, there wasn’t a venue specific for bank compliance officers to exchange ideas and obtain support for their job. Local bank compliance officers made phone calls to other bank compliance officers to discuss topics and questions. Out of those conversations came the idea to meet outside of the bank to try and organize their thoughts. This is when Heartland Compliance was born. A network of compliance professionals started to grow and as word spread, more compliance professionals joined in.
After a few short years, Heartland Compliance disbanded due to a slowing pace of new regulations. Since a fee was charged to attend those early meetings, a financial legacy remained as a seed to restart Heartland Compliance when the need arose.
Early in the last decade, a handful of the original Heartland Compliance members decided to activate the association again. Bank law was getting more complex and the pace of new regulations was picking up. The bylaws were dusted off, mission statements were formalized, and a steering committee was formed to guide the group. Quarterly meetings began to be held at Fidelity Bank. As membership grew, new locations with greater capacity were used such as Emprise Bank. Eventually, membership grew so large that the group moved to various hotel meeting rooms in the Wichita area.
Within a handful of years, the Heartland Compliance steering committee saw a need for an annual daylong meeting in addition to the quarterly meetings to cover new and updated rules and regulatory hot buttons. Professional speakers were engaged and annual meetings became a routine part of the Heartland Compliance we are today.
Today we are 150+ members strong and growing! Nationally known speakers, regulatory agencies, and a variety of both legal and compliance professionals present at our meetings. The association is strong, with committed members providing a plethora of educational and networking opportunities. And throughout all this, Heartland Compliance remains committed to its purpose of providing an educational forum for open discussion and the exchange of ideas and information.
Heartland Compliance is a Kansas non-profit organization, whose purpose is to encourage and combine the ideas, intelligence, and influence of its members for the promotion of compliance information and networking among its membership; to provide its members educational programs on compliance and related topics; and to provide a medium for the timely gathering of its members for the purposes of education and exchange of ideas.