The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the SEC and the CFTC (collectively, the "Volcker Agencies") issued an FAQ that clarifies the exemption under the Volcker Rule for certain covered fund activities conducted by foreign banking entities; i.e., solely outside the United States (the "SOTUS Exemption"). Under Section 248.13(b) of the final Volcker Rule, as now clarified by the Volcker Agencies in the FAQ, a foreign banking entity may (through its non-U.S. affiliates only) rely on the SOTUS

CFTC Chair Massad delivered the keynote address before the Institute of International Bankers. The address focused on the CFTC's priorities, including cross-border harmonization, clearing and benchmarks. Regarding cross-border regulation, Chair Massad explained that the margin rule is a good example of the importance of cross-border harmonization. He reiterated his willingness to consider making changes to the CFTC's proposed rule, such as increasing the threshold for margin requirement. Chair Massed said that he also is speaking currently with regulators about the effect of the supplemental

The MSRB issued a regulatory notice announcing that it received approval from the SEC to amend Rules G-1, G-2, G-3 and D-13 to establish professional qualification requirements for municipal advisors and to make related technical changes to the rules. According to the MSRB, the amendments to Rule G-3 establish two new registration classifications for municipal advisors: (i) municipal advisor representatives and (ii) municipal advisor principals. To qualify as either of these, an individual must pass the Series 50 examination, which the MSRB will administer as a pilot test in the fall of 2015

The MSRB announced that its Electronic Municipal Market Access Web site ("EMMA") will include public finance ratings from Moody's Investors Service. Currently, the MSRB provides ratings on EMMA from Fitch Ratings, the Kroll Bond Rating Agency and Standard Poor's. See: MSRB Press Release.

The SEC announced that the Section 31 fee rate for fiscal 2015 will remain at the current rate of $18.40 per million. This rate will remain in place until September 30, 2015, or 60 days after the enactment of a regular FY 2016 appropriation, whichever is later. The Section 31 assessment on round turn transactions in security futures also will remain at $0.0042 per transaction. See: SEC Press Release.