Comptroller of the Currency December 2010 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The OCC, the Board, the FDIC, and the OTS (collectively, the ``agencies'') are amending their Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) regulations to adjust the asset-size thresholds used to define ``small bank'' or ``small savings association'' and ``intermediate small bank'' or ``intermediate small savings association.'' As required by the CRA regulations, the adjustment to the threshold amount is based on the annual percentage change in the Consumer Price Index.

The OCC, the Board, the FDIC, and the OTS (collectively, ``the agencies'') are adopting revisions to our rules implementing the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The agencies are revising the term ``community development'' to include loans, investments, and services by financial institutions that support, enable, or facilitate projects or activities that meet the ``eligible uses'' criteria described in Section 2301(c) of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA), as amended, and are conducted in designated target areas identified in plans approved by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP). The final rule provides favorable CRA consideration of such activities that, pursuant to the requirements of the program, benefit low-, moderate-, and middle-income individuals and geographies in NSP target areas designated as ``areas of greatest need.'' Covered activities are considered both within an institution's assessment area(s) and outside of its assessment area(s), as long as the institution has adequately addressed the community development needs of its assessment area(s). Favorable consideration under the revised rule will be available until no later than two years after the last date appropriated funds for the program are required to be spent by the grantees. The agencies will provide reasonable advance notice to institutions in the Federal Register regarding termination of the rule once a date certain has been identified.

The OCC, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, invites the general public and other Federal agencies to comment on a continuing information collection, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a respondent is not required to respond to, an information collection unless it displays a currently valid Office of Management and Budget (OMB) control number. The OCC is soliciting comment concerning its information collection titled ``Assessment of Fees12 CFR 8.'' The OCC also gives notice that it has sent the collection to OMB for review.

The OCC is issuing this final rule to amend its regulations implementing the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) governing the confidentiality of a suspicious activity report (SAR) to: clarify the scope of the statutory prohibition on the disclosure by a financial institution of a SAR, as it applies to national banks; address the statutory prohibition on the disclosure by the government of a SAR, as that prohibition applies to the OCC's standards governing the disclosure of SARs; clarify that the exclusive standard applicable to the disclosure of a SAR, or any information that would reveal the existence of a SAR, by the OCC is to fulfill official duties consistent with Title II of the BSA; and modify the safe harbor provision in the OCC's SAR rules to include changes made by the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act. These amendments are consistent with a final rule being contemporaneously issued by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).