The federal bank regulatory agencies issued a request for comment this week on ideas to reduce the regulatory burden.
This request is in line with the Economic Growth and Regulatory Paperwork Reduction Act of 1996. That bill requires the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council and federal bank regulatory agencies to review their regulations every 10 years to identify any outdated or otherwise unnecessary regulatory requirements for their supervised institutions.
This is the first in a series of requests for comment on the subject.
To facilitate this review, the agencies divided their regulations into 12 categories. They are first soliciting comments on their regulations in three categories: Applications and Reporting, Powers and Activities, and International Operations.
Comments will be accepted for 90 days after publication in the Federal Register. The agencies, which include the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, are asking the public to identify regulations they believe are outdated, unnecessary, or unduly burdensome.
Over the next two years, the agencies will request comment on the regulations in the remaining categories.
Further, the agencies plan to hold outreach meetings where interested parties may comment on applicable regulatory requirements directly to the agencies.