ICBA President and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey issued the following statement on the House of Representatives’ passage of the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018 (H.R. 2).
The December issue of Independent Banker® magazine features profiles of ICBA’s Community Bankers of the Year. The profiles of Ken LaRoe, Scott McComb, Josh Rowland, and Stan Wilmoth feature their views on values, human connections, civic partnership, and community service.
Congress extended the National Flood Insurance Program through this Friday. With the program set to expire at the end of last week, the last-minute vote averted a lapse.
ICBA Bancard’s Tina Giorgio and TCM Bank’s Damon Moorer were featured in the latest This Month In Banking podcast by the Kafafian Group. The 30-minute recording discusses how Bancard and TCM support community banks’ credit card offerings and offers insight on trends affecting payments.
The shift to EMV chip technology has reduced card-present counterfeit payment fraud by 82 percent at chip-enabled merchants, Visa said. More than 3.1 million merchants are now accepting chip cards—67 percent of U.S. storefronts—and 98 percent of U.S. payment volume in September was on EMV cards.
The FDIC and Federal Reserve are reviewing resolution-planning regulations for bank holding companies, FDIC Chairman Jelena McWilliams said. McWilliams said that while the largest financial institutions remain an untested resolution challenge, the agencies are looking to make resolution planning more targeted and will release a proposal in the coming months.
A federal court this week granted the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection’s request to delay the effective date of its rule on small-dollar loans. The decision delays the August 2019 compliance date as the bureau plans to issue proposed rules in January that will reconsider the rule. The bureau plans to propose revisiting only the ability-to-repay provisions, which it said have greater consequences for consumers and the industry than the payment provisions.
ICBA President and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey issued a statement on federal regulators’ proposed rule to implement quarterly reporting relief required by the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (S. 2155).
The FDIC is hosting an upcoming teleconference on consumer compliance topics related to the S. 2155 regulatory relief law. Scheduled for 2 p.m. (Eastern time) Thursday, Oct. 25, the teleconference will feature a formal presentation on provisions of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act as well as a question-and-answer segment.
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued an advisory to help financial institutions better detect and report potentially illicit transactions related to Iran. The advisory provides information on the threats the Iranian regime poses to the U.S. financial system, describes deceptive financial strategies that the Iranian regime uses to evade sanctions, and provides red flag indicators related to specific malign activities and typologies.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency is seeking input on proposed modifications to the Underserved Markets Plans for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The “duty to serve” plans require the enterprises to serve three specified underserved markets—manufactured housing, affordable housing preservation, and rural housing.
The American Bankers Association (ABA) announced the winners of the third annual ABA Bank Marketing Video Awards this week during the Bank Marketing Conference in Baltimore. The Bank of Elk River was one of four banks honored at the conference and took home the “Best in Show” award for its video spotlighting how a local family collaborated with The Bank of Elk River to build their dream home. The video was also the winner in the category for banks with less than $500 million in assets.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac revised eligibility requirements for private mortgage insurers, the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced. The updates include changes to: risk-based asset requirements, the treatment of approved risk-transfer transactions, and risk-transfer credit arising from counterparty risk associated with reinsurance transactions. The standards establish minimum financial and operational requirements for doing business with the enterprises.
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston researchers encouraged stakeholders to continue collaborating on the development of payment tokenization. Noting that tokenization mitigates risk by eliminating the need to store and transmit a customer’s primary account number, a new paper says that collaboration will help expand its use in e-commerce, evaluate third-party token service providers, educate consumers, and anticipate future innovations.
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said financial institutions affected by Hurricane Florence should contact FinCEN and their functional regulator as soon as practicable to discuss any delays in their ability to file Bank Secrecy Act reports. FinCEN can be reached at [email protected].
Federal regulators exempted loans for property and casualty insurance policies from Customer Identification Program rules. Banks engaging in insurance premium finance lending must continue to comply with all other regulatory requirements implementing the Bank Secrecy Act, including the requirement to file suspicious activity reports.
The House passed legislation to permanently extend the lower individual tax rates included in the tax reform law signed late last year. Known as “Tax Reform 2.0,” the package of bills would lock in lower rates set to expire at the end of 2025, though it is not expected to be taken up by the Senate. In addition to cutting the top C-corp rate, the ICBA-supported Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 reduced the individual rates affecting Subchapter S banks.
The Justice Department told members of Congress that it is evaluating whether to issue guidance on web accessibility standards under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Responding to a bipartisan letter from 103 members of Congress requesting clarity, the DOJ stood by its interpretation that the law applies to websites, but left room for a flexible approach.
