Accounting standards

A report from Democratic staff on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said accounting firm KPMG gave Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic clean audits despite internal warnings, fraud allegations and apparent risks of failure.

Although no laws have yet passed, most of the bills introduced thus far do not consider EWA products to be loans. California is an exception.

Banks have been reclassifying their losses to avoid taking steep write-downs that could be helping them stay in business.

Credit unions' provision for loan and lease losses rose by 337% in 2022. Industry observers cite forecasted economic weakness and current expected credit loss implementation as the primary reasons.

Rising demand for compliance staffers to help banks meet stress test requirements has increased the chances of lower profitability, according to new research from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Baselane, which helps property owners manage bookkeeping and collect rent, has created a banking unit that offers checking accounts and lets landlords establish subaccounts for such needs as saving for remodels or setting aside security deposits.

Growing financial pressures have pushed more adults into living paycheck-to-paycheck and wanting to access their earned pay earlier, calling into question the value of decades-old payroll practices.

The legislation would let banks postpone the start date of the Current Expected Credit Losses accounting standard and delay categorizing pandemic-related loan modifications as troubled debt restructurings.

A final Senate breakdown still depends on the outcome in a few key races, but with Republicans closer to keeping power, Democrats' proposals to cap interest rates, create a postal banking system and establish a public credit reporting agency are likely dead on arrival.

The industry called for modifications to the regulator's phase-in proposal on the new credit loss standard while acknowledging the broader changes it wants are up to the Financial Accounting Standards Board.

At a time when the industry is focused on serving members and assisting with the economic recovery, executives shouldn't be burdened by a costly new credit loss methodology.

Measures designed to give banks and credit unions more flexibility to help customers weather the coronavirus pandemic are set to expire Dec. 31 unless Congress renews them.

Two bills — one providing relief from a loan accounting standard and another extending forbearance measures — would collectively contain credit losses.

The agencies completed steps to ease a community bank capital measure temporarily and to delay a new credit-loss accounting standard.

The regulator approved a proposal that mirrors a rule banking regulators implemented in February 2019 to cushion the Current Expected Credit Losses standard's impact on capital levels.

The National Credit Union Administration will also discuss the current expected credit losses standard, which trade groups have argued that the industry should be exempt from.

Russell Golden, who just stepped down from the Financial Accounting Standards Board, says he wants to be remembered for encouraging open discourse over new rules and efforts to simplify financial accounting.

Borrower relief is necessary in a national emergency, but if the exclusion of the deferred loans from troubled-debt restructurings is extended past the end of the year, safety and soundness could be compromised.

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.