Financial Services in support of the Department of the Treasury
Added: Nov 23, 2009 2:23 pm Sources Sought Notice for Omnibus Financial Services Contracts in Support of the Office of Financial Stability (OFS) Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)TOFS-10-S-0003This is a sources sought notice. This announcement is for market research and preliminary planning purposes. No proposals are being requested or accepted in response to this notice. THIS IS NOT A SOLICITATION FOR PROPOSALS AND NO CONTRACT WILL BE AWARDED AS A RESULT OF THIS NOTICE. No reimbursement will be made for any costs associated with providing information in response to this notice or any follow up information requests.The U.S. Department of Treasury, Office of Financial Stability (OFS) is responsible for the management and administration of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) which was established under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (Act). The purpose of the Act is to provide the Secretary of the Treasury (Secretary) with the authorities and facilities to restore liquidity and stability to the financial system of the United States. In addition, the Secretary is directed to ensure that such authorities are used in a manner that protects home values, college funds, retirement accounts, and life savings; preserves homeownership and promotes jobs and economic growth; maximizes overall returns to the taxpayers of the United States; and provides public accountability for the exercise of such authority. By acquiring, managing, and orderly liquidating the troubled assets over time, the Treasury seeks to improve the capital positions of financial institutions, reduce risk premiums in the market, improve liquidity and credit extension in the financial system, increase investor confidence, and provide market participants with more price transparency. The portfolio mandate and specific investment strategies may change over time but will always be consistent with these policy goals.The operational goals of OFS are to:1. Ensure the overall stability and liquidity of the financial system.2. Prevent avoidable foreclosures and help preserve homeownership.3. Protect taxpayer interests.4. Promote transparency.OFS administers loans, guarantees, equity investments, and other payments in the following programs:▪ Asset Guarantee Program (AGP)▪ Automotive Industry Financing Program (AIFP)▪ Capital Purchase Program (CPP)▪ Consumer and Business Lending Initiative (CBLI) ▪ Making Home Affordable/Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP)▪ Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP)▪ Systemically Significant Failing Institutions (SSFI)▪ Targeted Investment Program (TIP)The U.S. Department of Treasury has an ongoing requirement for various financial services to assist OFS with accomplishing its operational goals.The ten major categories where OFS is currently seeking expertise are:Accounting - Expertise in the area of Credit Reform Accounting, based on the Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 2: Accounting for Direct Loans and Loan Guarantees; the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-11; and the Treasury Financial Manual. This includes expertise in complex accounting transactions related to direct loans, loan guarantees, mortgage backed securities, equity investments, as well as preferred stock, and insurance related loan guarantees, and support in government sponsored entities or similar types of organizations.Policies and Procedures - Expertise in recommending, documenting, maintaining, and socializing policies and procedures that involve risk-related aspects and are critical to the OFS's operations. This includes making recommendations based on research and knowledge of best practices as OFS updates its policies and procedures to encompass information technology upgrades and implementation of new systems as it moves from manual to automated processes.Internal Controls and Program Compliance - Expertise in developing a robust internal control program, involving manual and automated processes and procedures, based on best practices and as prescribed in OMB Circulars A-123, A-127, and A-130; Treasury Directives; and other internal control procedures and which moves OFS to a state-of-the art control infrastructure. Expertise with supporting management in large organizations with responses to internal and external inquires related to complex programs and large volumes of information. Expertise with developing frameworks to identify, document, and amend requirements and the various risks - including fraud, waste, and abuse - associated with reasonably ensuring compliance with laws, regulations, and legal documents governing OFS programs; providing recommendations specific to enhancing internal controls and mitigation of risk associated with program compliance activities and processes; and providing user support materials and operational documentation for applications used to help ensure compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and legal documents governing OFS programs and recipients of TARP funding.Credit Reform Modeling - Expertise with modeling support, and financial and statistical analysis of equity, direct loan, and loan guaranty programs. The focus is on developing and maintaining cost models and estimates that are consistent with the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990. Given the constant evolution of best practices in the credit modeling environment, OFS seeks expertise with services and models that are current, relevant, and reflective of industry best practices.Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) of Credit Reform Models - Expertise in performing IV&V reviews of the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990 compliant financial and econometric models that forecast future cash flows of complex equity, direct loan, and loan guaranty programs, and compute the fair market value of preferred and unlisted common stocks. Reporting requirements include providing a validation that the complex models perform the intended functions or details on why the models do not perform the intended functions.Independent Verification and Validation of Systems - Expertise and product knowledge of various types of financial systems offered in the marketplace. Expertise in requirements-writing and production implementation of financial systems, to include test-case planning, bug-tracking, regression testing, and end user acceptance certification. Ability to conduct an audit of uploaded data into production system for completeness and accuracy.Systems Requirements and Life-Cycle Planning - Expertise with advising, developing, designing, and documenting the business and functional system requirements for a systems or systems of record associated with managing the OFS programs and their operational activities, to include a reasonable assurance that the system, as defined, complies with all applicable laws and regulations, including controls around handling personally identifiable information and which include the ability to perform quality control edits that are auditable and reportableSystems Development - Develop, test and deploy applications that meet the business and systems requirements for OFS program and operational systems, as defined above.Organizational Design - Expertise in organizational design and staffing approaches for OFS operations. Exposure to financial services industry best practices and organization models to properly control size and distribute work. Ability to help craft job descriptions and core competencies required to build out a staff. Benchmarking and industry best-in-class metrics for staffing and sizing of financial service organizations.Statistical Program Analysis - Expertise is needed to aid OFS with testing compliance with certain material aspects of program rules as well as identifying non-compliant and potentially fraudulent behavior and expertise with performing statistical analytics based on mathematical algorithms to look for patterns of behavior which may indicate system "gaming" and, for instance, in checking for compliance with allocation policy requirements.The purpose of this sources sought notice is to gain knowledge of the interest, capabilities, and qualifications of prospective offerors in support of the financial service areas described above. Treasury is particularly interested in understanding the capabilities and qualifications of interested small business concerns, including woman and minority owned small businesses, and service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses (SDVOSB). Treasury's choice of solicitation vehicle and acquisition strategy will depend in part upon the responses to this notice of all firms, including small businesses.Interested vendors are requested to provide a written response to this notice which is limited to a maximum of 11 pages with a minimum font size of 10 point, one page covering all information necessary to address items 1 - 4 below, and one page per each of the ten categories (items 5 and 6 below). For example: If responding to five categories, vendor's response is then limited to six pages total. The response should reference the following items:1) The vendor's name, address, point of contact, phone number, and e-mail address; 2) The vendor's small business size status, including whether the vendor is a woman owned, minority owned, or SDVOSB firm; 3) A statement indicating if vendor is currently a GSA Schedule holder, and, if so, identification of GSA contract number and corresponding schedule identification number.4) A statement as to whether the firm is interested in working as a prime contractor or a subcontractor*; 5) A statement indicating which of the ten categories the firm is interested in proposing; and,6) A description of the vendor's capabilities and timeframe of latest experience under each category the firm expresses interest.* Please Note: Treasury will maintain a list of any firm that represents that it has an interest in being a subcontractor or part of a teaming arrangement for purposes of the contemplated procurement. Treasury intends to provide such a list to any prospective offeror upon request. As a result, any firm that responds to this sources sought notice should indicate whether it consents to its inclusion on such a publicly-available list. The list may be posted at the government point-of-entry (http://www.fedbizopps.gov/).The North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code for this acquisition is 541611. The small business size standard, based upon the NAICS code, is $7,000,000.Treasury anticipates that the forthcoming solicitation will require offerors to provide information on the capabilities of their firms, and their key personnel, resources, past performance, and labor rates offered for each category on which they would like to propose. All firms will be required to propose an organizational conflicts of interest (OCI) mitigation plan. Treasury expects to award contracts to the combination of firms which represent the best value to the Government.Treasury plans to host an industry day in February, 2010, prior to solicitation release. Treasury plans to solicit offers in the March - April 2010 timeframe for the subsequent award of multiple contract vehicles covering all categories referenced above, while offering a best value to Treasury. Treasury anticipates a benefit from multiple awards as a result of increased competition for known task work or evolving needs, increased small business participation, and mitigation of possible conflicts. OFS anticipates needing ongoing support with current and future programs; thus, the resultant contract awards shall be issued for a performance period of up to five (5) years.Treasury intends to continue to post additional information in regards to requirements and evaluation factors, on the Federal Business Opportunities website (www.fedbizopps.gov) as it becomes known.Interested prospective offerors must respond to this sources sought notice no later than 2:00 P.M. ET on December 4, 2009. Responses and information in response to this notice must be sent via e-mail to FSACQ@do.treas.gov. Telephone inquiries shall be considered non-responsive. Treasury reserves the right to review submissions after the deadline for the purposes of further scope definition.
TOFS-10-S-0003 Department of the Treasury Departmental Offices
11/23/09, 2:23 PM