Regulation

After years of discussion among regulators, the Federal Reserve Board has approved changes to its CRA rules that will base compliance exams on where lending occurs rather than branch locations. The updates — set to take effect in January 2026 — also emphasize lending in lower-income areas as well as community development loans and investments.

The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued an alert Friday calling on financial institutions to closely monitor and report suspected financial activities related to Hamas, including complex cryptocurrency transactions and through fictitious charities.

Regulators will now accept feedback until Jan 16, 2024 — a six-week extension — concurrent with a Federal Reserve effort to gather additional information about the potential implications of the proposed capital changes.

The Federal Reserve vice chair for supervision says the failure of Silicon Valley Bank showed the shortcomings of the current stress testing regime.

Not only could warehouse lines of credit be impacted by the U.S. version of international Basel rules, and financing secured by mortgage servicing rights may be, too.

The high court will hear oral arguments on Oct. 3 on whether the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding violates the Appropriations clause. A key issue is whether parameters can be placed around Congress' authority over the federal purse strings.

Increasing federal deposit insurance limits is not the answer to the banking system's woes. It would cause riskier behavior and more red tape. And it wouldn't prevent bank runs.

The move to create data consortia and proprietary information networks is creating exactly the kind of information silos that money launderers exploit today.

Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said most small businesses will need to report information about their beneficial owners at the start of next year; certain financial and government entities are exempt because of their preexisting regulatory requirements.

Bancrédito International Bank and Trust Corp. "willfully violated" the Bank Secrecy Act, according to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. The penalty was the first under a two-year-old federal rule aimed at closing gaps in anti-money-laundering enforcement.