As an employee benefit our bank offers employees unsecured loans at the prevailing rate of interest.

1. Is the employee benefit loan subject to Regulation B.
2. Can the bank require a spousal signature

Yes -- all loans, including employee loans, are subject to Reg B. (There are a few exceptions but these relate to government credit, securities credit, and utilities.)

The spousal signature rules would apply. For an unsecured employee loan, you could not -- ABSOLUTELY NOT -- require the spouse's signature.

The usual question addressing employee benefits and loans is whether or not Insiders can participate. Yes, usually they can.

All other rules such as B will be the same and as Lucy emphasized, even in a community property state the spousal signature can't be required. At times you could because of collateral rights, not repayment, but none of those would apply here.

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Andy Zavoina
Opinions stated are not necessarily that of my employer.

Don't forget a TIL disclosure, too.

Actually, since it is individual unsecured credit, not only can you NOT require the spouse to sign, you cannot even ask about marital status (although you may already know that from HR records). You'll want to make sure that any application documents you have don't ask that question.

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Jim Bedsole, CRCM, CBA, CFSA

Opinions expressed are my own, and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

One exception on the marital status - if your employee lives in a community property state, then you can (and should!) ask for marital status. So if you have employees located in different states, you will need to check state law in each one.