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On December 16, 2021, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) issued draft principles (the “Proposal”) on the identification and management of climate-related financial risks by OCC-supervised banks with more than $100 billion in total consolidated assets (“covered banks”). The Proposal is intended to provide a high-level framework for the safe and sound…

On June 30, President Biden signed into law a joint resolution to repeal the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC) so-called true lender rule.  The rule was repealed under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), which allows Congress to repeal new federal regulations by passing a joint resolution of disapproval that must be later signed by the president.  Federal regulations repealed under the CRA are treated as if they had never gone into effect.
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Continue Reading Congress Repeals the OCC’s True Lender Rule

On June 3, 2021, in Lacewell v. OCC, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (the “Second Circuit”) dismissed the New York State Department of Financial Services’ (“DFS”) lawsuit against the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”). DFS challenged the OCC’s decision to commence accepting applications for special-purpose national bank (“SPNB”) charters from financial technology companies (“fintechs”) that do not accept deposits. The Second Circuit ultimately decided the case on justiciability grounds, holding that DFS lacked standing and that its claims were constitutionally unripe without reaching the merits of DFS’s claims.
Continue Reading Second Circuit Rejects New York State Department of Financial Services’ Lawsuit Against the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

On Tuesday, May 18, 2021, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) announced that it will reconsider its June 5, 2020 final rule (“final rule”) overhauling its regulations implementing the Community Reinvestment Act (the “CRA”).  The final rule, which applies only to national banks, federal savings associations, and insured federal branches (“OCC-regulated banks”), made the first major revisions to CRA regulations in nearly twenty-five years and would have established new general performance standards based on more quantitative measures of CRA performance than the tests set forth in existing CRA regulations.  Our client alert summarizes key aspects of the final rule.
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Continue Reading OCC to Reconsider June 2020 Community Reinvestment Act Final Rule

On May 3, 2021, media outlets reported that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will appoint Michael Hsu to serve as Acting Comptroller of the Currency.  Mr. Hsu currently serves as an Associate Director of the Division of Supervision and Regulation at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, where he heads the Large Institution Supervision Coordinating Committee (“LISCC”), which oversees the largest U.S. banking organizations.
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Continue Reading Treasury Secretary Yellen to Appoint Acting Comptroller of the Currency

On April 22, 2021, the Federal Reserve Board, FDIC, and OCC (the “agencies”) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking that would require banks that file tax returns as part of a consolidated tax filing group to enter into income tax allocation agreements with their parent companies and other members of the consolidated group that join in the filing, and would set forth specific requirements for the contents of those agreements.  The proposal would apply to all insured depository institutions and OCC-chartered uninsured institutions that are not registered as Subchapter S corporations (collectively, “covered institutions”).
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Continue Reading Federal Banking Regulators Issue Proposal on Income Tax Allocation Agreements

On January 19, 2021, several major federal financial regulators finalized rules clarifying the legal status of supervisory guidance.  As we described in a client alert late last year, a number of federal financial regulatory agencies—the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”), the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”), the National Credit Union Administration (“NCUA”), and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“Bureau”)—had been considering proposed rules that would largely codify the 2018 Interagency Statement Clarifying the Role of Supervisory Guidance (which we previously covered in this blog post). …
Continue Reading Federal Agencies Release Final Rule Clarifying the Role of Supervisory Guidance

On January 4, 2021, the OCC issued a proposed rule codifying standards governing a national bank’s or federal savings association’s investment in real estate used, or to be used, as bank premises.  Specifically, the proposed rule would revise 12 C.F.R. § 7.1024 in order to create a more transparent and consistent set of principles for evaluating the acquisition and use of  national bank and federal savings association premises.
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Continue Reading OCC Proposes Rule Codifying Standards for Investment in Bank Premises

On November 20, 2020, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) issued a proposed rule that would impose on large national banks and federal savings associations (collectively, “banks”) a requirement to provide “fair access” to the financial products and services those institutions offer. The proposal is intended to preclude the banks it covers…

On October 27, 2020, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) issued a final rule that determines when a national bank or Federal savings association (collectively, “banks”) makes a loan and therefore is the “true lender” in the context of a partnership between a bank and a third party.  The rule provides that a bank makes a loan if, as of the date of origination, it (1) is named as the lender in the loan agreement or (2) it funds the loan.  It differs from the proposed rule only in providing that, in the case where one bank is named as the lender in the loan agreement and a different bank funds the loan, the bank named in the agreement is the one that makes the loan.
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Continue Reading OCC Issues True Lender Rule