The Economic Growth and Regulatory Paperwork Reduction Act of 1996 (EGRPRA) requires four of the federal banking agencies — the FFIEC, FDIC, FRB, and OCC — to review their regulations at least once every ten years to identify outdated, unnecessary, and unduly burdensome regulations. As part of their review, the agencies are requesting written comments and are holding outreach meetings throughout the country. The agencies will respond to the comments and determine whether any should be amended or repealed, with a report to Congress on the regulatory changes and any issues that must be addressed by legislation.

Which regulations are included in the EGRPRA review?

The EGRPRA review includes only regulations for which the FFIEC, FDIC, FRB, or OCC has rulemaking authority. Because the CFPB now has rulemaking authority for most consumer protection regulations, the review will not cover most of the consumer protection regulations that have the largest impact on financial institutions. However, some consumer protection regulations will be included, such as the fair housing advertising and recordkeeping requirements, flood insurance protections, safeguarding of customer information, and identity theft rules.

The EGRPRA Website lists all of the regulations to be reviewed, which have been split into twelve categories. There will be four rounds of commenting for each set of categories:

Round One: Applications and reporting, powers and activities, and international operations

• Comment period ended September 2, 2014 — view comments here

Round Two: Banking operations, capital, and the Community Reinvestment Act

• Comment period ends May 14, 2015 — view comments here

Round Three: Consumer protection, directors, officers and employees, and money laundering

• To be announced

Round Four: Rules of procedure, safety and soundness, and securities

• To be announced

Does the EGRPRA review include all banking regulations?

No. Only FFIEC, FDIC, FRB, and OCC rules are included in the EGRPRA review. As a result, many of the most significant banking regulations are excluded. The CFPB’s regulations are excluded (though they will undergo a similar review process five years after their effective dates), and other agencies’ regulations are excluded, such as FinCEN’s anti-money laundering rules (though the OCC, FRB, and FDIC’s anti-money laundering rules are included).

In addition, rules that go into effect during the EGRPRA review, rules that have not been fully implemented and rules that have only “recently gone into effect” are not part of the EGRPRA review. As a result, most of the recent regulatory capital rules implementing the Basel III and Dodd-Frank Act changes to capital requirements are excluded.

How can our bank participate?

• Submit Written Comments — You can comment on each set of regulations as they are published in the Federal Register through the Federal Register’s eRulemaking Portal (at www.regulations.gov) or through the EGRPRA Website (http://egrpra.ffiec.gov).

• Attend the Chicago Outreach Meeting — An outreach meeting is scheduled in Chicago on October 19, 2015. Stay tuned for details, and view video and transcripts of past outreach meetings at other locations here.