Office of Thrift Supervision December 2006 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) (collectively, the Agencies) are proposing revisions to the existing risk-based capital framework that would enhance its risk sensitivity without unduly increasing regulatory burden. These changes would apply to banks, bank holding companies, and savings associations (banking organizations). A banking organization would be able to elect to adopt these proposed revisions or remain subject to the Agencies' existing risk-based capital rules, unless it uses the Advanced Capital Adequacy Framework proposed in the notice of proposed rulemaking published on September 25, 2006 (Basel II NPR). In this notice of proposed rulemaking (NPR or Basel IA), the Agencies are proposing to expand the number of risk weight categories, allow the use of external credit ratings to risk weight certain exposures, expand the range of recognized collateral and eligible guarantors, use loan-to-value ratios to risk weight most residential mortgages, increase the credit conversion factor for certain commitments with an original maturity of one year or less, assess a charge for early amortizations in securitizations of revolving exposures, and remove the 50 percent limit on the risk weight for certain derivative transactions. A banking organization would have to apply all the proposed changes if it chose to use these revisions. Finally, in Section III of this NPR, the Agencies seek further comment on possible alternatives for implementing the ``International Convergence of Capital Measurement and Capital Standards: A Revised Framework'' (Basel II) in the United States as proposed in the Basel II NPR.

In accordance with the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. chapter 35), the OCC, the Board, the FDIC, and the OTS (collectively, the agencies) may not conduct or sponsor, and the 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 Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), of which the agencies are members, approved the agencies' publication for public comment of proposed new regulatory reporting requirements for banks \1\ that qualify for and adopt the Advanced Capital Adequacy Framework to calculate their risk-based capital requirement or banks that are in the parallel run stage of qualifying to adopt this proposed framework. This notice extends the comment period on this document for consistency with the extension of the comment period for the notice of proposed rulemaking on the Advanced Capital Adequacy Framework, as published elsewhere in today's issue of the Federal Register.

The Department of the Treasury, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, invites the general public and other Federal agencies to comment on proposed and continuing information collections, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, 44 U.S.C. 3507. The Office of Thrift Supervision within the Department of the Treasury will submit the proposed information collection requirement described below to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act. Today, OTS is soliciting public comments on its proposal to extend this information collection.

In accordance with the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3507), OTS may not conduct or sponsor, and the respondent is not required to respond to, an information collection unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. On July 31, 2006, OTS requested public comment for 60 days (71 FR 43286) on proposed revisions to the Thrift Financial Report (TFR), which is currently an approved collection of information. The notice described regulatory reporting revisions proposed for the TFR, Schedule SC Consolidated Statement of Condition, Schedule SOConsolidated Statement of Operations, Schedule LDLoan Data, Schedule CF Consolidated Cash Flow Information, Schedule SISupplemental Information, Schedule SQConsolidated Supplemental Questions, and Schedule HCThrift Holding Company. The proposed revisions would eliminate ten line items from the TFR, revise six existing items, add 16 new items, and eliminate confidential treatment of Schedule HC data. After considering the comments received, OTS has adopted the proposed revisions, with the exception of the proposals to revise the language of the question in line HC840 and to eliminate the confidential treatment of data in Schedule HC. OTS is setting the effective date for the revisions at March 31, 2007. OTS is submitting the adopted revisions to OMB for review and approval.