Brendan Pedersen

Acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks said the agency plans to issue new assessment procedures within weeks as a follow-up to recent Community Reinvestment Act reforms. He also touched on the “true lender” issue and why the agency is considering a narrow-purpose payments charter.

Regulators are urging banks to offer small-dollar loans again and lifting existing restrictions on nonbank lenders. But the real challenge is making those loans favorable to consumers without losing money.

Seven trade groups said they would fight any effort by the agency to establish a tailored license for payments providers such as PayPal, Stripe and Square.

The three-month extension for the central bank's lending programs is one of several recent steps by policymakers to stabilize the economy as the coronavirus pandemic stretches through the summer.

The regulation allows banks to add employees with past convictions for trivial crimes after the industry complained the prior rules were too severe.

Responding to an unnamed bank that had sought the opinion, the regulatory agency issued an interpretive letter clarifying that an institution's custody services can be used for cryptographic keys and other digital currency-related assets.

Even though fewer cases are reported among the agency's employees compared to the government average, the watchdog said the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. should improve its anti-harassment training and other procedures.

Backers say a bill to limit asset growth instead of restricting brokered funds addresses concerns about expanding balance sheets at troubled banks. But skeptics worry it would open the door to greater risk.

The investment firm is the latest nonbank to try to enter banking through a Utah-based ILC.

The so-called tech sprint involving 20 companies from across the country is intended to help improve the efficiency of banks' quarterly data submissions to the regulators.

With multiple business sectors reeling from the pandemic, banks are facing tighter net interest margins, provisioning more for losses and seeing their balance sheets expand, the agency said in a report.

While they are not dramatically opposed, Jelena McWilliams and Brian Brooks have articulated their own ideas on postal banking and the use of artificial intelligence in lending.

Five financial regulatory agencies clarified the meaning of "covered funds" under the Volcker Rule. Meanwhile, the FDIC gave certain banks more flexibility in interaffiliate exchanges of swaps and adopted a workaround of a court decision governing interest rates on loans sold across state lines.

The pandemic will accelerate the drive toward a supervision process in which both regulators and banks will need the digital tools that enable sophisticated remote exams. Expect a heightened focus, too, on customers' financial health.

Three banking trade associations told the FDIC that Rakuten Bank America, even after revisions to its earlier application to the agency, would still violate the separation of banking and commerce as well as present consumer privacy concerns.

Former Comptroller of the Currency Gene Ludwig says making online lenders, credit unions and other nonbanks comply with the Community Reinvestment Act would be a powerful tool in addressing racial and economic injustices.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency will use year-end 2019 asset totals in its calculating its next assessment, saying national banks "should not be penalized" for adding emergency loans to their books during the pandemic.

The legislation would aim to address concerns that the current policy is outdated by establishing a new regime to limit asset growth for banks that are not well-capitalized.

In one of the first comprehensive analyses of how the banking industry was affected by the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the agency said quarterly income fell by nearly 70% from a year earlier.

The acting comptroller of the currency signaled that his agency is planning to resume on-site supervision despite health risks tied to the pandemic. But some bankers and former examiners urged caution, saying remote monitoring has its advantages.