Regulatory Roundup: IMPORTANT, NOT IMMINENT

race and sex of small-business owners. Banks could use the information to ensure they were serving all segments of their market; the data could not be used for underwriting purposes. Bankers are generally critical of the proposal, claiming the data would be unreliable. Published by the Fed on April 26. Comments were due June 27. CAPITAL REQUIREMENTS: The federal banking agencies are trying to find more accurate ways to set capital requirements. One proposal, agreed upon by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, would let banks use internal models to measure the risk associated with foreign exchange and other trading activities. Regulators would then use these measurements to set required capital levels. Published by all the agencies July 25. Comments were due Sept. 18. A second plan, issued solely by the Fed, would let banks decide for themselves how much capital to set aside for trading activities - and make them pay fines if their losses exceeded the capital cushion. Published July 25. Comments were due Nov. 1. BANK POWERS: The Comptroller's proposal to let national banks conduct new activities through subsidiaries is a year old this month. Currently, nonbank products and services are offered through holding company subsidiaries, not bank units. The plan was proposed last November; comments were due in late January. Pending legislation to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act would go the other way on securities activities, requiring banks to conduct new securities activities in holding company subsidiaries. RECOURSE II: The agencies are trying to come up with a comprehensive, credit rating-based method for determining how much capital banks should have to hold against assets sold with recourse. An advance notice of proposed rulemaking was issued for comment in May 1994. Comments were due in July 1994. A more concrete proposal is due out before the end of this year. PREMIUM BASE: The FDIC has pending an advance notice of proposed rulemaking that would change the way it calculates how much institutions pay for deposit insurance. The September 1994 proposal sought ideas for adding liabilities to the domestic deposits that now make up the assessment base, or for converting the base to assets. Narrower changes that have been suggested include eliminating the current float and measuring domestic deposits by quarterly average.