In Brief: Deadline Today on Cash Report Exemptions

Today's the deadline for banks to deliver a list of companies they want to exempt from currency transaction reports.

Banks should send one completed report for each company to the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. Banks may exempt publicly traded companies and their subsidiaries listed on a consolidated tax form.

The New York and American stock exchanges, and Nasdaq, have searchable Internet sites to help banks identify which companies are publicly traded. They can be searched, respectively, at http://www.nyse.com; http://www.amex.com, and http://www.nasdaq.com.

Fincen officials have said they will continue to accept exemption requests after today's deadline, but encourage bankers not to delay filing.

Uniform Change-of-Control Document Eyed

The four banking and thrift agencies have proposed paring the paperwork required of people wishing to acquire a financial institution's voting shares.

Under the proposal, published in the Aug. 13 Federal Register, those wishing to acquire control of a bank or a thrift would submit the same form. Currently, each agency requires a unique document.

The proposal is good news for those acquiring voting shares of banks, because often they must submit separate change-of-control forms to the Comptroller's Office and the Federal Reserve.

The agencies also proposed to let banks and thrifts submit the same form to notify their respective regulators prior to hiring new directors and officers.

The public may submit comments on the proposal until Sept. 12. Final action is expected before the end of the year.

More Electronic Filing of Call Reports Urged

Bank and thrift regulators want more institutions to file quarterly call reports electronically.

The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council "strongly encouraged" banks and thrifts to take advantage of new filing software in a letter released last month.

"Electronic submission enables your call report data to be received and processed more accurately and quickly than data submitted to the agencies in the traditional hard-copy format," wrote Joe M. Cleaver, the council's executive secretary.

More than half of all banks and thrifts already submit their call reports electronically. For more information, contact your regulator or Electronic Data Systems Corp. - which collects the information for the agencies - at 800-255-1571.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
MORE FROM AMERICAN BANKER