Many of these best practices seem to be resulting from community bankers like you modifying the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate governance requirements to make them relevant for your individual business and corporate structure. At the Federal Reserve, we tend to favor best-practice approaches for corporate governance at community banks rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.
Corporate governance perspective of consultants I’ll start with a report card on the state of corporate governance at community banks issued by the major consulting and accounting firms. Recently, several have reported on the governance practices at financial services firms, including community banks.