The Federal Reserve Board is holding four public hearings between July and September on potential revisions to Regulation C, which implements the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act.
The Board wants to:
The hearings will take place at the Atlanta Fed on July 15, the San Francisco Fed on Aug. 5, the Chicago Fed on Sept. 16 and the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 24. Mortgage lenders, consumers, community and consumer organizations, and other interested parties are invited to participate in the hearings. Eighth District bankers can participate either in person or by submitting written statements of any length before any of the events.
The federal financial regulatory agencies issued Interagency Guidance on Correspondent Concentration Risks on April 30. Financial institutions are expected to consider actions beyond the minimum requirements to identify, monitor and manage correspondent concentration risks, especially when there are rapid changes in market conditions or in a correspondent's financial condition.
It is important for financial institutions to:
Several examples illustrating possible actions by an institution are included in the final guidance. If you have any questions, contact your regulator.
If your customers are unsure how the new rules are supposed to work for debit cards, ATM withdrawals and the like, you can direct them to the Fed’s Overdraft Protection web site.
Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve Board proposed clarifications to its Nov. 17, 2009, final Regulation E rule regarding assessing overdraft fees on one time debit card and ATM transactions. The proposal clarifies that the prohibition in Regulation E on assessing overdraft fees without the consumer's affirmative consent applies to all institutions, including those with a policy and practice of declining ATM and one-time debit card transactions when an account has insufficient funds.
The last of a series of changes to credit card practices take effect in August.
The third stage of credit card changes required by the 2009 Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act will address practices related to excessive penalty fees and require credit card issuers to inform consumers of the reasons for increases in rates. In addition, issuers that have increased rates since Jan. 1, 2009, must evaluate whether the reasons for the increase have changed and, if appropriate, reduce the rate.