Federal Reserve System December 24, 2008 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board) has adopted revisions to part II of its Policy on Payment System Risk (PSR) that are designed to improve intraday liquidity management and payment flows for the banking system, while also helping to mitigate credit exposures of the Federal Reserve Banks (Reserve Banks) from daylight overdrafts. The adopted changes to the PSR policy are substantially the same as those proposed for comment, including a new approach that explicitly recognizes the role of the central bank in providing intraday balances and credit to healthy depository institutions, a zero fee for collateralized daylight overdrafts, a 50 basis point (annual rate) charge for uncollateralized daylight overdrafts, and a biweekly daylight overdraft fee waiver of $150. The implementation of the changes will take place between the fourth quarter of 2010 and first quarter of 2011. A specific date will be announced by the Board at least 90 days in advance. The Board also approved for foreign banking organizations (FBO) an interim policy change related to the calculation of the deductible amount from daylight overdraft fees under the existing policy and early implementation of the proposed streamlined procedure for maximum daylight overdraft capacity (max cap). The interim policy change for the deductible and streamlined max cap procedure will be effective on March 26, 2009. In addition, the Board endorsed a four-prong strategy, which includes these policy changes, through which the Federal Reserve and industry will address related intraday liquidity, operational, and credit risks in the wholesale payment system.