Comptroller of the Currency March 2009 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

On September 19, 2008, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System adopted the Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility (the ``AMLF'' or ``ABCP Lending Facility'') which enables depository institutions and bank holding companies to borrow from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston on a non- recourse basis if they use the proceeds of the loan to purchase certain asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) from money market mutual funds. The purpose of this action was to reduce strains being experienced by money market mutual funds. To facilitate national bank participation in the program, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) adopted on September 19, 2008, on an interim final basis, an exemption from its risk-based capital guidelines for ABCP held by a national bank as a result of its participation in this program.

The OCC is proposing 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 report of a suspicious transaction, 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 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 the purposes of the BSA;'' and modify the safe harbor provision in its 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 based upon a similar proposal being contemporaneously issued by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).