Agencies and Commissions February 21, 2019 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The FDIC, as part of its obligations under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, invites the general public and other Federal agencies to take this opportunity to comment on the renewal of an existing information collection for its sixth National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households (Household Survey), currently approved under OMB Control No. 3064-0167. The Household Survey is scheduled to be conducted in partnership with the U.S. Census Bureau as a supplement to its June 2019 Current Population Survey (CPS). The survey seeks to measure and track economic inclusion among U.S. households, and to identify the factors that inhibit the participation of these households in the mainstream banking system and opportunities to expand the use of banking services among underserved consumers. The results of these ongoing surveys will help policymakers and bankers understand the issues and challenges underserved households perceive when deciding how and where to conduct financial transactions. On November 6, 2018, the FDIC requested comment for 60 days on a proposal to renew these information collections. The FDIC received two comments which are discussed below. The FDIC hereby gives notice of its plan to submit to OMB a request to approve the renewal of this information collection, and again invites comment on the renewal.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is reopening the comment period for a proposal to amend rules and forms to help investors make informed investment decisions regarding variable annuity and variable life insurance contracts. The proposal would permit persons to satisfy their prospectus delivery obligations under the Securities Act of 1933 for a variable annuity or variable life insurance contract and any associated portfolio companies by sending or giving a summary contract prospectus to investors and making the statutory and portfolio company prospectuses available online. In addition, the proposal would amend the registration forms for variable annuity and variable life insurance contracts to update and enhance the disclosures to investors in these contracts, and would require the Inline eXtensible Business Reporting Language (``Inline XBRL'') format for certain required disclosures in the variable contract statutory prospectus. The proposal would also make certain technical and conforming amendments to our rules and forms, as well as rescission of certain related rules and forms, and seek comments regarding parallel amendments to rules governing mutual fund summary prospectuses and registration forms applicable to other types of registered investment companies. The original comment period ended on February 15, 2019. The Commission is reopening the time period in which to provide the Commission with comments until March 15, 2019. This action will allow interested persons additional time to analyze the issues and prepare their comments.

The Farm Credit Administration (FCA, Agency, we, our) is requesting comments on ways to collect, evaluate, and report data on how the Farm Credit System (FCS or System) is fulfilling its mission to finance and provide services to young, beginning, and small (YBS) farmers, ranchers, and producers or harvesters of aquatic products (YBS Farmer(s)). Additionally, we are seeking comments on how FCA should define or clarify key terms associated with the collection and reporting of YBS data.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) invites public comment on a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPR or proposal) that would amend its deposit insurance assessment regulations to apply the community bank leverage ratio (CBLR) framework to the deposit insurance assessment system. The FDIC, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) (collectively, the Federal banking agencies) recently issued an interagency proposal to implement the community bank leverage ratio (the CBLR NPR). Under this proposal, the FDIC would assess all banks that elect to use the CBLR framework (CBLR banks) as small banks. Through amendments to the assessment regulations and corresponding changes to the Consolidated Reports of Condition and Income (Call Report), CBLR banks would have the option of using either CBLR tangible equity or tier 1 capital for their assessment base calculation, and using either the CBLR or the tier 1 leverage ratio for the Leverage Ratio that the FDIC uses to calculate an established small bank's assessment rate. Through this NPR, the FDIC also would clarify that a CBLR bank that meets the definition of a custodial bank would have no change to its custodial bank deduction or reporting items required to calculate the deduction; and the assessment regulations would continue to reference the prompt corrective action (PCA) regulations for the definitions of capital categories used in the deposit insurance assessment system, with technical amendments to align with the CBLR NPR. To assist banks in understanding the effects of the NPR, the FDIC plans to provide on its website an assessment estimation tool that estimates deposit insurance assessment amounts under the proposal.