Proposed Regulations

Recently, the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) regarding permissible foreign currency investments for federal credit unions and corporate credit unions. The ANPR follows a rule adopted by the NCUA last year which permitted federally insured credit unions to accept member shares denominated in foreign currency.

On April 30, 2007, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System published in the Federal Register proposed rules amending Regulations B, E, M, Z, and DD. Generally, the proposed rules withdraw provisions in each regulation added by interim final rules in 2001 to implement the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (E-Sign Act).

On February 5, 2007, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) issued for public comment a proposed rule to strengthen the regulatory framework for consideration of applications or notices for industrial banks or industrial loan companies (ILCs) owned by financial companies that are not subject to consolidated supervision by the Federal Reserve Board or the Office of Thrift Supervision.

Recently, the Fannie Mae entered into a Cooperation Agreement (Agreement) with the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise (OFHEO) and the New York Attorney General's Office to adopt a Home Valuation Protection Code (Code). As part of the agreement, Fannie Mae, along with Freddie Mac and other industry players, will also contribute to the establishment of an Independent Valuation Protection Institute (Institute). Fannie Mae has requested comments from its customers a

As directed by the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), the Department of Treasury's FinCEN requires financial institutions, including credit unions, to report transactions in currency in excess of $10,000. The Money Laundering Suppression Act of 1994 amended the BSA by establishing a statutory system of exempting transactions by certain customers of depository institutions. This system devised two types of exemptions: mandatory exemptions and discretionary exemptions.

The proposed rule would modify the calculation of net worth ratio in cases involving mergers of natural person credit unions so that the post-merger ratio would be calculated by dividing the sum of the acquiring credit union's retained earnings and the merging credit union's retained earnings by the total assets (under GAAP, total assets are the sum of the acquiring credit union's total assets at book value and the merging credit union's total assets at fair value).

Recently, the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) issued a proposed rule to revise its rules relating to the accuracy of advertising and notice of insured status. Specifically, the proposed changes seek clarify and reduce the burden of existing rules regarding shared branch networks which include nonfederally-insured credit unions.

Corporate credit unions have played an important role in the credit union industry. They provide critical services to natural person credit unions, including payment and clearing services, enabling access to wire transfer facilities and automated clearing house transactions, as well as loan and investments services that provides small credit unions to achieve economies of scale and access to greater market returns otherwise unavailable to them. They have also been an important source of liquidity for credit unions, and have served as agents for the NCUA on loans funded by the NCUA's Central Liquidity Facility.

In response to questions concerning the interagency guidelines issued by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), Federal Reserve, and Office of Thrift Supervision (OCC), the agencies issued new, amended guidelines.

Recently, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) regarding the duty for the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) to serve underserved markets.

The proposed rule would make significant changes to Part 704 of NCUA's rules and regulations, which pertains to corporate credit unions (corporates). The issues addressed include: capital requirements, investment authority, asset and liability management (ALM), corporate governance and corporate credit union service organizations (CUSOs).

On December 7, 2001, the Federal Reserve Board published proposed revisions to the official staff commentary that applies and interprets the requirements of Regulation Z. These changes seek to clarify how creditors that lace Truth in Lending Act disclosures on the same document with the credit contract may satisfy the requirement for providing the disclosures in a form the consumer may keep.

On April 19, 2001, the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) approved aproposed rule that would revise NCUA's regulations on nondiscrimination in advertising.

On November 16, 2000, the NCUA Board of Directors unanimously approved a notice of proposed rulemaking that would substantially amend the existing group purchasing and insurance provisions of part 721 of NCUA's Rules and Regulations.

On Thursday, March 16, the NCUA Board unanimously agreed to approve an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) on regulatory flexibility (Reg-Flex).

Based on the report by NCUA's Field of Membership Task Force on revisions to the Chartering and Field of Membership Policy (IRPS 99-1), NCUA has issued a proposed rule amending the policy.

On July 15, 2002, Rules Work Group #34 of the National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA) published a set of proposed amendments that would modify certain aspects of the rule compliance audit requirements to ensure that all key aspects of ACH processing are addressed.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (GLBA) mandated a study of information sharing practices among financial institutions and their affiliates.

Recently, NCUA published proposed rules regarding share insurance, which are intended to simplify and clarify current regulations and provide parity with the deposit insurance rules of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.