Bank regulators move to weed out regulations

Bank agency officials will begin meeting next month to determine what rules should be scrapped in a top-to-bottom review of the federal rulebooks.

Officials at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System will hold their first outreach meeting at the Los Angeles branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco on Dec. 2.

Congress ordered the annual review of federal rules under the Economic Growth and Regulatory Paperwork Reduction Act of 1996.

{mosads}The law requires the agencies, along with the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, to review their regulations once every 10 years to weed out outdated or unnecessary regulations. The last review was completed in 2007.

Business groups — and the financial industry in particular — are flooding federal agencies with suggestions for which regulations should be pared back.

Industry participants, consumer and community groups will give panel presentations at the Los Angeles meeting. There will also be time for public comment on the 12 categories listed in the Federal Register in June.  

The areas of focus include applications and reporting; powers and activities; internal operations; banking operations; capital; the Community Reinvestment Act; consumer protection; directors, officers and employees; money laundering; rules of procedure; safety and soundness; and securities.

More meetings will be held next year in Dallas, Boston, Chicago and Washington, D.C.