Regulators Address Economic Growth and Paperwork Reduction

Steven Lofchie Commentary by Steven Lofchie

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ("OCC"), the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve ("FRB") and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ("FDIC") held the sixth and final Economic Growth and Regulatory Paperwork Reduction Act ("EGRPRA") Outreach Meeting.

FRB Governor Daniel K. Tarullo stated that comments received from the EGRPRA's required joint review of the FRB by federal banking agencies focused on: (i) simplifying the regulatory capital rules for smaller community banks; (ii) modifying the types and amounts of information collected by the quarterly Consolidated Report of Condition and Income, the so-called "Call Report"; and (iii) updating certain regulations and supervisory practices implementing the Community Reinvestment Act to reflect current banking practices.

OCC Comptroller of the Currency Thomas J. Curry discussed two legislative proposals advanced by the OCC intended to reduce regulatory burden by: (i) raising the asset-threshold to $1 billion for community banks to qualify for the 18-month examination cycle; and (ii) providing federal savings associations with greater flexibility to expand their business model without changing their governance structure.

Commentary

The regulators were uniformly upbeat in describing their efforts at reducing the burdens imposed by regulations on community banks. It would be interesting to conduct a poll of the community banks to see whether they are equally upbeat upon this subject.

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