Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

On October 20, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the National Credit Union Administration (each, a Banking Agency, and collectively, the Banking Agencies) published a proposed rule (the Proposed Rule) that would codify the Interagency Statement Clarifying the Role of Supervisory Guidance issued by the Banking Agencies on September 11, 2018 (the 2018 Statement). The 2018 Statement provided that regulatory guidance did not have the force and effect of law and did not create binding obligations on the public.
Continue Reading Banking Agencies Issue Proposed Rule Addressing Role of Supervisory Guidance

On June 25, the five prudential regulators responsible for the margin rules for bank swap dealers (the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Farm Credit Administration and the Federal Housing Finance Agency) adopted one final rule and one interim final rule that modify their original framework for margining uncleared swaps.
Continue Reading Prudential Regulators Revise Initial Margin Rules for Uncleared Swaps

On June 25, the five regulators responsible for Section 13 of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 (Volcker Rule) approved a set of amendments that modify and clarify the covered fund provisions of the regulations implementing the Volcker Rule. (The five regulators are the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the Securities and Exchange Commission.) The final amendments are generally the same as those proposed in January of this year.
Continue Reading Volcker Rule Regulators Make Changes to Covered Fund Rules

On January 30, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the Board) adopted a final rule to simplify and increase the transparency of determinations of when a company has the ability to exercise a controlling influence over another company for purposes of the Bank Holding Company Act or the Home Owners’ Loan Act. The rule takes the form of amendments to Regulation Y.
Continue Reading Federal Reserve Adopts Revamped Standards for Determinations of Bank Control

On January 30, the five regulators responsible for Section 13 of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 (the “Volcker Rule”) each approved a set of amendments intended to modify and clarify the covered fund provisions of the regulations implementing the Volcker Rule. (The five regulators are the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission.)
Continue Reading Volcker Rule Regulators Propose Changes to Covered Fund Rules

On December 3, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the National Credit Union Administration (the Banking Agencies) released interagency guidance related to the use of alternative data for purposes of underwriting credit (the Guidance).
Continue Reading US Banking Agencies Issue Statement on Alternative Date in Credit Underwriting

On September 17, the directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) approved a joint notice of proposed rulemaking (NPR) with respect to the prudential regulator margin rules for non-cleared swaps. The joint form of the NPR indicates that the other prudential swap regulators (the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Farm Credit Administration and the Federal Housing Finance Agency) will all be approving the same NPR in the near future.
Continue Reading FDIC Proposes Amendments to Prudential Regulator Swap Margin Rules

On August 20, the Board of Directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) approved their version of a set of amendments intended to simplify some of the requirements of the regulations implementing Section 13 of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 (the “Volcker Rule”), which was enacted as Section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The Volcker Rule generally prohibits banking entities from engaging in proprietary trading and from owning or controlling hedge funds or private equity funds subject to numerous qualifications and exemptions set forth in the Volcker Rule regulations, which are identical sets of rules adopted by each of the Volcker Rule regulators (the FDIC, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and the Securities and Exchange Commission). These final amendments incorporate the responses of the Volcker Rule regulators to the numerous comments they received when they initially proposed a set of amendments in 2018.
Continue Reading FDIC Approves Amendments to the Volcker Rule