Operation Choke Point Bill Set for Review

The House Financial Services Committee is meeting Tuesday to begin voting on several bills that are part of ABA’s Agenda for America’s Hometown Banks.

The bills would roll back U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer’s (R-Mo.) measure against Operation Choke Point, designate portfolio loans as Qualified Mortgages, make more institutions eligible for the 18-month exam cycle, improve exam fairness and institute a hold-harmless period for the TILA-RESPA integrated disclosures until Feb. 1, 2016.

Operation Choke Point is a program in which the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and U.S. Department of Justice reportedly applied pressure to financial institutions to cut off financial services to certain licensed, legally operating industries, including debt collection.

Luetkemeyer’s Financial Institution Customer Protection Act of 2015 would ban a federal banking agency from suggesting, requesting or ordering that a depository institution terminate either a specific customer account, or group of customer accounts.

It would prohibit a banking agency from restricting or discouraging having a banking relationship with a specific customer or group of customers, unless it had a material reason to do so, and the reason is not based solely on reputation risk, according to a committee memorandum on the hearing. The hearing is scheduled for 2 p.m. (EST) in Washington, D.C.

Meanwhile, the House Financial Services Committee also will hold a Dodd-Frank five-year review of economic prosperity on Tuesday, the House Agriculture Committee will examine progress on implementing Dodd-Frank derivatives reforms on Wednesday and the Senate Banking Committee will look at the role of bankruptcy reform in addressing too-big-to-fail on Wednesday.