In the latest issue of Supervisory Insights, the FDIC Division of Risk Management Supervision ("DRMS") summarized its observations on "oil price volatility and bank performance." In the article titled "Oil Price Volatility and Bank Performance: A View from the Supervisory Process," the DRMS said that: banks with substantial direct lending exposure to the oil and gas ("O&G") sector saw "greater increases in problem assets than other banks"; banks might have indirect exposure to stress within the O&G sector if they function in certain areas with high concentrations of O&G activity; only a small

The MSRB moved the release date of its voluntary Municipal Advisor Principal Qualification (Series 54) pilot examination from February 2019 to March 2019. The MSRB noted that the pilot enrollment period also has been moved to March 4-15, 2019, and that the permanent Series 54 examinations will be available in Fall 2019.

In two new reports, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ("CFPB") assessed the impact of the Ability to Repay / Qualified Mortgage ("ATR/QM") Rule and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act ("RESPA") Mortgage Servicing Rule. The rules took effect in January 2014. The ATR/QM Rule (i) requires a mortgage lender to assess a borrower's ability to repay ("ATR") a mortgage loan, (ii) sets standards for classifying QM loans and (iii) establishes criteria and requirements for lenders to evaluate the ability of consumers to repay loans under the ATR requirement. In one report, the CFPB found

U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters (D-CA) urged the Federal Reserve Board, FDIC, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, National Credit Union Administration and CFPB (collectively, "the regulators") to give assurance to their regulated entities that they will not be criticized for providing leniency to take action to protect borrowers "may be experiencing temporary financial hardship in making payments on their existing credit obligations as a result of the [government] shutdown." In a letter to the regulators, Representative Waters stated

University of Chicago Professor M. Todd Henderson and NYU Professor Max Raskin proposed an operational test for determining whether a digital asset should be considered a security under Securities Act Sections 2 and 3. The professors described how to apply the " Howey Test" for an "investment contract" to digital assets in order to determine which types of digital assets should be regulated as securities. The professors propose a test to (i) identify which digital assets are "sufficiently decentralized," so that they should not be considered "securities" (as there are no promoters or issuers)