Find Top Stories by Day or Week

Yesterday, the Federal Reserve Board announced four consent enforcement orders:

• John Freeze, former chief financial officer for Bank of Jackson Hole, Jackson, Wyoming, received an order of prohibition for misappropriation of documents, including confidential supervisory information
• Three former officers of Farmers and Merchants Savings Bank, Manchester, Iowa, received orders to cease and desist and to pay civil money penalties of $50,000 each, for misappropriation of confidential bank records:
  • Randy Johnson, former executive vice president
  • Chad Kellogg, former senior vice president for commercial lending
  • Jeffrey Hines, former senior vice president for commercial banking

The Federal Reserve Board has published its civil money penalty inflation adjustments for 2024 in the January 12, 2024, Federal Register.

The FFIEC yesterday announced that its member agencies are making changes to the Uniform Bank Performance Report’s Balance Sheet dollar page on or shortly after January 15, 2024. These changes, being led by the Task Force on Surveillance Systems, are part of a previously announced ongoing multiyear review of Uniform Bank Performance Report content.

More information on the changes to the UBPR Balance Sheet dollar page is available HERE.

On Thursday, the CFPB announced guidance to consumer reporting companies to address inaccurate background check reports, as well as “sloppy credit file sharing practices.” The two advisory opinions seek to ensure that the consumer reporting system produces accurate and reliable information and does not keep people from accessing their personal data.

• An advisory opinion on Fair Credit Reporting; Background Screening highlights that those reports must be complete, accurate, and free of information that is duplicative, outdated, expunged, sealed, or otherwise legally restricted from public access.
• An advisory opinion on Fair Credit Reporting; File Disclosure highlights that people are entitled to receive all information contained in their consumer file at the time they request it, along with the source or sources of the information contained within, including both the original and any intermediary or vendor source.

The advisory opinions will become effective on publication in the Federal Register.

Publication update: The advisory opinions were published at 89 FR 4171 (Background Screening) and 89 FR 4167 (File Disclosure) in the January 23, 2023, Federal Register.

The Federal Trade Commission has published [89 FR 2034] in this morning's Federal Register a proposal to amend the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule, consistent with the requirements of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

The proposed modifications are intended to respond to changes in technology and online practices, and where appropriate, to clarify and streamline the Rule. The proposed modifications, which are based on the FTC's review of public comments and its enforcement experience, are intended to clarify the scope of the Rule and/or strengthen its protection of personal information collected from children.

Comments on the proposal are due by March 11, 2024.

The FDIC has published [89 FR 1917] a notice in today's Federal Register of inflation adjustments to maximum civil money penalties under the FDIC's purview. The adjusted maximum amounts of civil money penalties in the notice are applicable to penalties assessed after January 15, 2024, for conduct occurring on or after November 2, 2015.

The Federal Reserve Board, FDIC, and OCC have issued an overview video on the final rule issued on October 24, 2023, to strengthen and modernize their regulations implementing the Community Reinvestment Act.

The nearly one-hour video on the regulators' YouTube channels provides an overview of the new CRA rule and its objectives. Additional topics in the recording include assessment areas, community development, evaluation framework, performance tests, ratings, data collection and reporting, and applicability dates.

The U.S. Senate yesterday failed to override President Biden's veto of a Congressional Review Act resolution that would have nullified the CFPB's Small Business Lending reporting rule (mandated by section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act). The president's veto could have been overridden by two-thirds votes in both the House and the Senate. The Senate vote failed with a 54-45 vote.

The CFPB rule remains in limbo, however, pending a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of the Bureau's funding mechanism.

Yesterday, the Securities and Exchange Commission reported charges against global software company SAP SE for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) arising out of bribery schemes in South Africa, Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Indonesia, and Azerbaijan. The company agreed to monetary sanctions of nearly $100 million in disgorgement and prejudgment interest to settle the SEC’s charges.

The SEC’s order finds that SAP, whose American Depositary Shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange, violated the FCPA by employing third-party intermediaries and consultants from at least December 2014 through January 2022 to pay bribes to government officials to obtain business with public sector customers in the seven countries. According to the SEC’s order, SAP inaccurately recorded the bribes as legitimate business expenses in its books and records, despite the fact that certain of the third-party intermediaries could not show that they provided the services for which they had been contracted. The SEC’s order finds that SAP failed to implement sufficient internal accounting controls over the third parties and lacked sufficient entity-level controls over its wholly owned subsidiaries.

In 2016, the SEC charged SAP with books and records and internal accounting controls violations in connection with a bribery scheme in Panama.

SAP consented to the SEC’s order finding that it violated the anti-bribery, recordkeeping, and internal accounting controls provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. SAP agreed to cease and desist from committing or causing any violations of these provisions and to pay disgorgement of $85 million plus prejudgment interest of more than $13.4 million, totaling more than $98 million, which will be offset by up to $59 million paid by SAP to the South African government in connection with its parallel investigations into the same conduct.

OCC Bulletin 2024-2, issued yesterday, announced the OCC's publication [89 FR 872] on January 8, 2024, of a notice to adjust the maximum amount of each civil money penalty (CMP) within the OCC's jurisdiction pursuant to the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990, as amended. The adjusted maximum penalties are effective as of January 8, 2024, for violations occurring on or after November 2, 2015.

The NCUA published [89 FR 1441] a notice this morning to adjust the maximum amount of each CMP within its jurisdiction.

The Federal Reserve Board has released the minutes from its meetings from November 13 through December 13, 2023, to review and determine the discount rates provided to depository institutions through the discount window.

Yesterday, FinCEN released a Financial Trend Analysis (FTA), Identity-Related Suspicious Activity: 2021 Threads and Trends, on information in BSA Reports filed in 2021. FinCEN’s analysis found that approximately 1.6 million reports (42% of the reports filed that year) related to identity—indicating $212 billion in suspicious activity.

The report, which is part of what FinCEN has previously referred to as its Identity Project, explores how bad actors exploit identity-related processes involved in processing transactions as well as opening and accessing accounts. FinCEN identified over 14 typologies commonly indicated in identity-related BSA reports. The most frequently reported were fraud, false records, identity theft, third-party money laundering, and circumvention of verification standards. These top five typologies accounted for 88% of identity-related BSA reports and 74% of the total identity-related suspicious activity amount reported during calendar year 2021.

Trends found in the BSA reporting include:

• Although identity-related suspicious activity impacted all types of financial institutions, depository institutions filed the most identity-related BSA reports, around 54% of all identity-related filings.
• While most financial institutions in the identity-related BSA dataset reported impersonation as their top identity exploitation, money services businesses most often reported circumvention of verification.
• The report found that compromised credentials have a disproportionate financial impact as compared to other types of identity exploitation.

FinCEN’s FTAs highlight the value of information filed by financial institutions in accordance with the BSA. Additional reports on a variety of topics are located on FinCEN’s website.

The OCC will host a public hearing of the FFIEC Appraisal Subcommittee on appraisal bias on February 13, 2024, from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. ET, at its headquarters, 400 7th Street SW, Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee panel will include a representative from each of the five Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) regulatory agencies, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Witnesses will include representatives from the Appraisal Foundation, state appraiser licensing and regulatory organizations, and active appraisers.

The meeting is open to the public, but in-person and virtual attendees must register to attend no later than February 9. Registration for in-person attendance may close sooner if maximum capacity is reached.

Yesterday, OCC Bulletin 2024-1 announced the publication of answers to frequently asked questions about the State Small Business Credit Initiative 2.0 (SSBCI) based on the facts and circumstances presented in the questions.

The FAQs do not introduce new policy or guidance and are based on previously communicated policy, guidance, and interpretations.

The Federal Trade Commission has reported it has issued its biennial report to Congress on the National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry that shows the number of consumers who have placed their telephone numbers on the Registry over the past two years has reached more than 249 million.

The report also notes that the FTC has received more than two million Do Not Call complaints in fiscal year (FY) 2023 with people overwhelmingly reporting these violations came via robocalls, as opposed to live telemarketing.

Imposter scam, medical needs and prescription scam calls led the list of commonly reported call topics in FY 2023, followed by calls related to reducing debt and energy, solar, and utilities. In response to the consistently high number of complaints from the public about impersonator scams, the FTC recently continued its rulemaking initiative to combat business and government impersonation fraud. A data spotlight issued in June 2023 found that bogus bank fraud warnings were the most common form of text message scam reported to the agency, and that many of the most common text scams impersonate well-known businesses.

The Federal Reserve Banks made public eight Community Reinvestment Act compliance evaluations in December 2023. Six of those evaluations were rated "Satisfactory." We congratulate two banks that earned ratings of "Outstanding" on their evaluations (links are to the public portion of the evaluations):

• Dokotah Bank, Aberdeen, South Dakota
• Heartland Bank, Whitehall, Ohio

On Monday, Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen offered remarks on the current status of the Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting initiative. She noted that in just the first week of reporting, over 100,000 filings have been made. She said, "We’re also making reporting as easy as possible for the small businesses at the heart of the American economy so that the benefits for small businesses, and for all of us, will far outweigh what should be a relatively straightforward effort to comply. The reporting process is simple, quick, and free. A small business shouldn’t need a certified public accountant or lawyer. To help companies understand the requirements, we’re hard at work getting the word out. We’re coordinating with federal and state government offices and partnering with the Small Business Administration to hold virtual and in-person events. We’ve published guidance in multiple languages, including specifically for small businesses. We have a Contact Center that is live and taking questions."

On other topics, Secretary Yellen said, "In line with the U.S. Strategy on Countering Corruption, we are ... pursuing increased transparency in our real estate and investment adviser sectors. We aim to issue a notice of proposed rulemaking early this year that will be an important step toward bringing greater transparency to residential real estate transactions, and we are considering next steps to address risks associated with commercial real estate."

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has announced its adoption of a final rule to adjust for inflation the maximum amount of each civil penalty within the CFPB’s jurisdiction. The adjustments are required by the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990 (Inflation Adjustment Act), as amended.

The changes are effective January 15, 2024. The inflation multiplier used this year was 1.03241. The Bureau's notice has been published at 89 FR 1787 in the January 11, 2023, Federal Register.

The Internal Revenue Service yesterday announced Monday, January 29, 2024, as the official start date of the nation's 2024 tax season when the agency will begin accepting and processing 2023 tax returns.

The IRS expects more than 128.7 million individual tax returns to be filed by the April 15, 2024, tax deadline.

Although the IRS will not officially begin accepting and processing tax returns until January 29, people do not need to wait until then to work on their taxes if they're using software companies or tax professionals. For example, most software companies accept electronic submissions and then hold them until the IRS is ready to begin processing later this month. IRS Free File will also be available on IRS.gov starting January 12 in advance of the filing season opening.

On Friday, the Federal Reserve Board announced the Chairs and Deputy Chairs of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks for 2024.

Boston
Corey Thomas, chairman and chief executive officer, Rapid7, Inc., Boston, Massachusetts, renamed Chair.

Roger W. Crandall, chairman, president, and chief executive officer, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, Springfield, Massachusetts, renamed Deputy Chair.

New York
Vincent Alvarez, president, New York City Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO, New York, New York, renamed Chair.

Pat Wang, president and chief executive officer, Healthfirst, New York, New York, named Deputy Chair.

Philadelphia
Anthony Ibarguen, chief executive officer, Quench USA, Inc., King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, renamed Chair.

Sharmain Matlock-Turner, chief executive officer, Urban Affairs Coalition, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, renamed Deputy Chair.

Cleveland
Heidi L. Gartland, chief government and community relations officer, University Hospitals, Cleveland, Ohio, named Chair.

Richard Kramer, chairman, chief executive officer, and president, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Akron, Ohio named Deputy Chair.

Richmond
Jodie W. McLean, chief executive officer, EDENS, Washington, D.C., renamed Chair.

Lisa M. Hamilton, president and chief executive officer, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Baltimore, Maryland, renamed Deputy Chair.

Atlanta
Claire Lewis Arnold, chief executive officer, Leapfrog Services, Inc., Atlanta, Georgia, renamed Chair.

Gregory A. Haile, former president, Broward College, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, renamed Deputy Chair.

Chicago
Jennifer F. Scanlon, president and chief executive officer, UL Solutions Inc., Northbrook, Illinois, renamed Chair.

Juan Salgado, chancellor, City Colleges of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, renamed Deputy Chair.

St. Louis
Carolyn Chism Hardy, president and chief executive officer, Chism Hardy Investments, LLC, Bartlett, Tennessee, named Chair.

Lal Karsanbhai, president and chief executive officer, Emerson Electric Co., St. Louis, Missouri, named Deputy Chair.

Minneapolis
Chris Hilger, chairman, president, and chief executive officer, Securian Financial, St. Paul, Minnesota, named Chair.

Paul D. Williams, president and chief executive officer, Project for Pride in Living, Minneapolis, Minnesota, named Deputy Chair.

Kansas City
Patrick A. Dujakovich, president, Greater Kansas City AFL-CIO, Kansas City, Missouri, renamed Chair.

Jandel Allen-Davis, M.D., president and chief executive officer, Craig Hospital, Englewood, Colorado, named Deputy Chair.

Dallas
Thomas J. Falk, retired chairman and chief executive officer, Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Dallas, Texas, renamed Chair.

Claudia Aguirre, president and chief executive officer, BakerRipley, Houston, Texas, renamed Deputy Chair.

San Francisco
David P. White, chief executive officer, 3CG Ventures, and former national executive director, Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), Los Angeles, California, named Chair.

Russell A. Childs, chief executive officer and president, SkyWest, Inc., St. George, Utah, named Deputy Chair.

The CFPB on Friday announced its publication of Issue Spotlight: Federal Student Loan Return to Repayment, on the CFPB’s oversight of student loan servicing practices in the early months of the resumption of federal student loan repayments after over three years of a payment pause due to the COVID-19 emergency.

• Long hold times and abandoned calls: The report finds that borrowers are frequently forced to wait on hold for more than an hour when calling their servicer, and many give up without ever receiving assistance. Many servicers were able to boost their financial performance by dramatically reducing staffing during the pandemic. However, servicers have not met the foreseeable borrower demand for help with their loans.
• Significant delays in processing income-driven repayment plan applications: Millions of income-driven repayment plan applications were submitted between August and October 2023. As of late October, servicers reported more than 1.25 million pending income-driven repayment plan applications – with more than 450,000 of those applications pending for more than 30 days with no resolution. Processing times vary across servicers, with some servicers taking five times longer than others to process applications.
• Inaccurate and untimely billing statements: Borrowers are receiving faulty and confusing bills from servicers. Errors include listing premature due dates before the end of the payment pause, inflating monthly payment amounts due to the servicer using outdated poverty guidelines, or using the incorrect income when calculating a borrower’s new income-driven repayment plan payment. These mistakes can cause significant borrower confusion, and can further strain the servicers’ resources by forcing borrowers to contact their servicer to resolve the errors.

The Federal Trade Commission has announced it has joined the State of Connecticut in filing a complaint against auto dealer Chase Nissan LLC d/b/a Manchester City Nissan, its owner, and key employees, for systematically deceiving consumers about the price of certified used cars, add-ons, and government fees.

The complaint alleges that the dealership, in addition to deceiving consumers, regularly charges them junk fees for certification, add-on products, and inflated government charges without the consumers’ consent, sometimes costing them thousands of dollars in unwanted and unauthorized charges.

Connecticut also alleges that all these practices are deceptive or unfair under Connecticut law.

The FDIC has released a list of 68 banks whose evaluations of compliance with the Community Reinvestment Act were recently made public. We congratulate four banks on the list whose evaluations were rated Outstanding:

• West Bank, West Des Moines, Iowa
• Pioneer Bank, Albany, New York
• Montecito Bank & Trust, Santa Barbara, California
• Genesis Bank, Newport Beach, California

First Trust and Savings Bank, Coralville, Iowa, received a "Needs to Improve" rating. The remaining 63 banks' evaluations were rated Satisfactory.

The CFPB emailed a reminder yesterday that it opened the filing period for HMDA data collected in 2023 on January 1, 2024. Submissions will be considered timely if received on or before Friday, March 1, 2024.

The Federal Reserve Board has released the minutes of the December 12–13, 2023, meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee.

Yesterday, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it obtained an asset freeze and other emergency relief concerning an alleged $93 million real estate investment fraud perpetrated by Miami-based developer Rishi Kapoor. The SEC also charged Location Ventures LLC, Urbin LLC, and 20 other related entities in connection with the fraud scheme.

According to the SEC’s complaint, from approximately January 2018, until at least March 2023, Kapoor and certain of the defendant entities solicited investors by, among other things, making several material misrepresentations and omissions regarding Kapoor, Location Ventures, Urbin, and their real estate developments. The false statements allegedly included misrepresenting Kapoor’s compensation; his cash contribution to the capitalization of Location Ventures; the corporate governance of Location Ventures and Urbin; the use of investor funds; and Kapoor’s background. The SEC’s investigation uncovered that Kapoor allegedly misappropriated at least $4.3 million of investor funds and improperly commingled approximately $60 million of investor capital between Location Ventures, Urbin, and some of the other charged entities. The complaint also alleges that Kapoor caused some entities to pay excessive fees and to represent higher returns to investors by significantly understating cost estimates.

The complaint charges Kapoor, Location Ventures, Urbin, and the 20 related entities with violating provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The SEC seeks permanent injunctions, civil monetary penalties, an officer-and-director bar against Kapoor, and disgorgement of ill-gotten gains with prejudgment interest against Kapoor and certain of the charged entities.

The OCC has released CRA evaluations for 25 OCC-supervised institutions whose evaluations became public in December 2023.

Of the evaluations listed, 18 are rated satisfactory, and the following seven are rated outstanding:

• BMO Harris Bank, NA, Chicago, Illinois
• Catalyst Bank, Opelousas, Louisiana
• Citizens National Bank of Albion, Albion, Illinois
• First National Bank Colorado, Las Animas, Colorado
• Geddes FS & LA, Syracuse, New York
• Lone Star National Bank, Pharr, Texas
• Sunrise Banks, NA, Saint Paul, Minnesota

The CFPB yesterday posted a Bureau Blog article on "Holding debt collectors responsible for false statements," to announce that the Bureau has filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit to help ensure consumers can hold debt collectors responsible when they make false representations.

In this case — Carrasquillo v. CICA Collection Agency — an individual filed for bankruptcy, so collection efforts against the person should generally have stopped. However, a debt collector still sent the person a letter to collect on the debt and said that the consumer could be sued if they didn’t pay it. Because of the bankruptcy rules, that statement was false—the consumer couldn’t actually be sued. The individual sued to hold the debt collector accountable for the misrepresentation, but the debt collector pleaded ignorance. The debt collector claimed that they were only responsible under the law when they intended to say something false.

As the CFPB’s amicus brief explains, a debt collector can be liable under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act even if they claim that they did not know that their statement was false. A debt collector will not be held responsible in a lawsuit brought by an individual if they can show that they didn’t intend to make the false representation and that they had effective procedures in place designed to prevent the mistake. But debt collectors cannot just stick their heads in the sand and claim ignorance. This interpretation has been upheld by numerous courts, and it is what Congress clearly intended. The brief also explains that consumers generally do not lose the law’s important protections when they file for bankruptcy.

The FDIC has released a list of enforcement actions it took in November 2023.

• Horicon Bank, Horicon, Wisconsin, was assessed a $23,000 civil money penalty for engaging in a pattern or practice of violations of the Flood Disaster Protect Act and FDIC regulations.
• Removal and Prohibition Orders were issued against:
  • Sheree Leanne Carter, formerly a teller at Rockland Trust Company, Rockland, Massachusetts, after the FDIC found, and Carter neither admitted nor denied that over a span of 16 years she stole funds from the bank by taking cash from her teller drawer and cash intended for the bank's ATMs. manipulated the bank's systems and records to create fictitious transactions before audits and to cancel those transactions after the audits were completed, to avoid detection and conceal her embezzlement for personal gain of approximately $430,000.
  • Lladira Hernandez, formerly a client success representative at Central Valley Community Bank, Fresco, California, after the FDIC determined, and Hernandez neither admitted nor denied that, between May and August 2022, she initiated unauthorized ACH debits from four separate customers; and also fraudulently created an online banking profile for a customer, linked her own accounts to it and, after
    resigning from the bank, initiated unauthorized transfers.
  • William J. Burnell, formerly the chief credit officer of NBC Bank, New Orleans, Louisiana, after the FDIC determined, and he neither admitted nor denied, that during 2015 and 2016 he approved loans to borrowers that he knew were not creditworthy. An earlier Order for Assessment of a Civil Money Penalty against him was terminated.
• Cease and Desist Consent Orders were issued to Peoples Bank, Munster, Indiana; Commenity Servicing, LLC, Columbus, Ohio; First Fed Bank, Port Angeles, Washington; Liberty Bank, Inc., Salt Lake City, Utah, and; Brighton Bank, Brighton, Tennessee.

FinCEN yesterday announced it has begun to accept Beneficial Ownership Information reports. Existing reporting companies have until January 1, 2025, to register. Reporting companies newly created or registered in 2024 have 90 days after receiving actual or public notice that their company's creation or registration is effective.

The National Credit Union Administration has announced it issued an Notice of Prohibition to Andrea Alice Nedow, a former teller/member service representative at Traverse Catholic Federal Credit Union, Traverse City, Michigan, after a finding that she made unauthorized withdrawals from member accounts. She was later prosecuted for embezzlement by local law enforcement, and, on January 24, 2023, she pleaded guilty to two charges of embezzlement.

OFAC has designated one individual and three entities responsible for facilitating the flow of Iranian financial assistance to Houthi forces and their destabilizing activities. Among those designated are the head of the Currency Exchangers Association in Sana’a, and three exchange houses in Yemen and Türkiye. These persons have facilitated the transfer of millions of dollars to the Houthis at the direction of U.S.-designated Sa’id al-Jamal, who is affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF).

For the names and identification information of the designated parties, see the December 28, 2023, BankersOnline OFAC Update.

• Treasury Department press release

The Federal Trade Commission has announced it has filed suit against Grand Canyon Education, Inc. (GCE), Grand Canyon University (GCU), and Brian Mueller—the CEO of GCE and president of GCU—for deceiving prospective doctoral students about the cost and course requirements of its doctoral programs and about being a nonprofit, while also engaging in deceptive and abusive telemarketing practices.

In its complaint, the FTC says that GCU and GCE told prospective students that the total cost of GCU’s “accelerated” doctoral programs was equal to the cost of just 20 courses (or 60 credits). In reality, the school requires that almost all doctoral students take additional “continuation courses” that add thousands of dollars in costs. The U.S. Department of Education reported that fewer than 2% of GCU doctoral program graduates completed their program within the cost that GCU advertises, and almost 78% of these students take five or more continuation courses. The complaint also says that, despite operating the school for the profit of GCE and its investors, the defendants deceptively marketed the school as a nonprofit.

The defendants also used abusive telemarketing calls to try to boost enrollment at GCU, according to the complaint. GCE advertised on websites and social media urging prospective students to submit their contact information on digital forms. GCE telemarketers then used the information to illegally contact people who have specifically requested not to be called, as well as people on the National Do Not Call Registry. GCE has also made illegal calls to numbers it purchased from lead generators.

The FTC says the defendants’ deceptive claims and abusive telemarketing calls violated the FTC Act and the Telemarketing Sales Rule and asks the court to provide redress to consumers and prohibit the institution from further violations of the law.

The OCC, Federal Reserve, and FDIC yesterday published [88 FR 89489] a joint notice and request for comment on proposed revisions to the reporting forms and instructions for the Call Reports and the FFIEC 002 relating to the reporting on (1) loans to nondepository financial institutions and other loans, (2) guaranteed structured financial products, and (3) proposed long–term debt requirements. The proposed revisions to the FFIEC 002 report form and instructions relate to the reporting on the loans to nondepository financial institutions and other loans. These proposed changes apply to all three versions of the Call Report (FFIEC 031, FFIEC 041, and FFIEC 051) and to the Report of Assets and Liabilities of U.S. Branches and Agencies of Foreign Banks (FFIEC 002), as applicable.

In addition, the agencies are requesting comment on a proposal to adopt ongoing standards for electronic signatures to comply with the Call Report signature and attestation requirement.

These proposed changes would be effective as of the June 30, 2024, report date, except for those related to the proposed long–term debt requirements, which would take effect the same quarter as the effective date of any final rule on such requirements.

Redlined copies of the FFIEC 031, FFIEC 041, and FFIEC 051 Call Report forms showing the proposed changes and the related draft reporting instructions will be available on the FFIEC’s webpages for these reports, which can be accessed from the FFIEC’s Reporting Forms webpage.

Comments must be submitted by February 26, 2024.

• FDIC Financial Institution Letter FIL-68-2023.
  

The OCC, Federal Reserve Board, FDIC, and NCUA have this morning published [88 FR 89820] a final rule in the Federal Register adopting final changes to the Uniform Rules of Practice and Procedures (Uniform Rules) to recognize the use of electronic communications in all aspects of administrative hearings and to otherwise increase the efficiency and fairness of administrative adjudications. The OCC, Board, and FDIC are also modifying their agency-specific rules of administrative practice and procedure (Local Rules). The OCC also is integrating its Uniform Rules and Local Rules so that one set of rules applies to both national banks and Federal savings associations and amending its rules on organization and functions to address service of process.

The changes affect 12 CFR Parts 3, 4, 6, 19, 108, 109, 112, 150, and 165 (OCC); Parts 238 and 263 (Federal Reserve); Part 308 (FDIC); and Part 747 (NCUA). The amendments are to become effective April 1, 2024.

On Tuesday, the FDIC released the public sections of resolution plans of nine large domestic covered insured depository institutions (IDIs) that were due by December 1, 2023.

FDIC regulations require a covered insured depository institution to submit a resolution plan under which the FDIC, as receiver, might resolve the institution under the Federal Deposit Insurance Act in a way that provides depositors timely access to their insured deposits, maximizes returns on the sale or disposition of assets, and minimizes creditor losses.

The nine IDIs include (with links to the public portion of their plans):

• Bank of America NA
• Bank of New York Mellon
• Citibank, NA
• Goldman Sachs Bank USA
• JPMorgan Chase Bank NA
• Morgan Stanley Bank NA
• Morgan Stanley Private Bank, NA
• State Street Bank and Trust Company
• Wells Fargo Bank NA

On Tuesday, the OCC issued Bulletin 2023-40 announcing revisions to the asset-size threshold amounts used to define “small bank or savings association” and “intermediate small bank or savings association” under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) regulations. The thresholds—which apply to any national bank, federal savings association, or state savings association (collectively, bank)—become effective January 1, 2024. This bulletin adjusts the threshold amounts based on the annual percentage change in a measure of the Consumer Price Index.

The threshold amounts are the same as those announced last week by the FDIC and Federal Reserve System—Beginning January 1, 2024, a bank that, as of December 31 of either of the prior two calendar years, had assets of less than $1.564 billion is a “small bank or savings association.” A “small bank or savings association” with assets of at least $391 million as of December 31 of both of the prior two calendar years and less than $1.564 billion as of December 31 of either of the prior two calendar years is an “intermediate small bank or savings association.”

The Federal Trade Commission has announced it will extend by 30 days the comment period on its proposed rule prohibiting junk fees. Comments will now be accepted through February 7, 2024.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Census Bureau jointly announced the following new residential sales statistics for November 2023:

• New Home Sales: Sales of new single‐family houses in November 2023 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 590,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 12.2 percent (±15.6 percent)* below the revised October rate of 672,000, but is 1.4 percent (±19.8 percent)* above the November 2022 estimate of 582,000.
• Sales Price: The median sales price of new houses sold in November 2023 was $434,700. The average sales price was $488,900.
• For Sale Inventory: The seasonally‐adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of November was 451,000. This represents a supply of 9.2 months at the current sales rate.

According to the December 2023 FHFA House Price Index for December, U.S. house prices rose in October, up 0.3 percent from September, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) seasonally adjusted monthly House Price Index (HPI). House prices rose 6.3 percent from October 2022 to October 2023. The previously reported 0.6 percent price increase in September was revised to a 0.7 percent increase.

• FHFA 12/26/2023 press release