Washington Report 360 | March 22, 2019

Key highlights

• The Administration released proposals to reform student lending practices under the Higher Education Act; the proposals would generally require Congressional action.  The President separately signed a related Executive Order.
• The CFPB intends to issue a proposed rule on debt collection.

Financial services legislative and regulatory news

The SEC:

• Adopted final rules amending disclosure requirements under Regulation S-K.
• Introduced the new Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation.
• Proposed rules to modify the registration, communications, and offering process for business development companies and other closed-end investment companies.

The federal banking agencies, the FHFA, and the Farm Credit Administration adopted an interim final rule amending the Swap Margin Rule to address the possibility the U.K. withdraws from the E.U. without a negotiated agreement.

The OCC issued a revised version of its Recovery Planning booklet; the enforceable guidelines apply to large, complex banks, which generally have total consolidated assets of $250 billion or more.

Financial services policy news

The Administration released Proposals to Reform the Higher Education Act, including loan limits on PLUS loans, loan forgiveness programs for all undergraduates (meeting certain requirements), consolidation of income-based repayment plans with new caps, and requirements for certain postsecondary institutions to share the financial risk of student loans. The President also signed an Executive Order requiring the Department of Education to make institution-level data available for student loan default and repayment rates.

The CFPB:

• Intends to issue a proposed rule on debt collection in spring 2019; the CFPB and FTC submitted the annual report to Congress on the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
• Published a Complaints Snapshot focusing on servicemembers, veterans, and military families.

The Federal Reserve announced:

• The members of its Fraud Definitions Working Group, a new initiative to build a recommended payments fraud classification model including definitions and/or categories for key data points related to ACH, wire, and check payments fraud.
• The launch of its 2019 Payments Study, which will include two surveys – one covering depository institutions and one covering payment card networks and third party payment processors.
• The release of a report on debit card transactions in 2017.

The FDIC published its Supervisory Insights featuring the transition to alternative reference rates; FDIC says its examiners will not examine for the status of LIBOR planning or criticize loans or deposits for referencing LIBOR.

The CPMI and the IOSCO published an update on progress implementing the Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures in individual jurisdictions.