Field notes
Running a two-day pre-examination dry run in Tainan
Last autumn we ran a two-day dry run with a licensed payment firm near Tainan whose bank partner had scheduled a control review. The goal was not to invent perfect answers, but to see whether the right people could produce the right evidence on a clock.
Day one focused on document production. We issued a shortened request list at 09:00 and timed each delivery. Policy PDFs arrived quickly; transaction samples and exception logs took until mid-afternoon because ownership was unclear between operations and the compliance mailbox. That delay became the first remediation item before the real visit.
Day two rehearsed interviews. We asked the same questions an examiner or bank reviewer typically opens with, then rotated a second round with tougher follow-ups on waived alerts. Staff who knew the process well still stumbled when asked for the date of the last policy approval. Printing a one-page chronology for each major control fixed that gap overnight.
By the end of the rehearsal, leadership had a short list of owners, evidence locations, and phrasing that matched their actual practice. The bank review that followed still raised questions—but none about missing binders or silent rooms.