SEC

The fact that financial institutions increasingly are engaging in transactions involving digital assets has spurred federal agencies to speak up regarding additional compliance obligations that come with the territory.

The agencies detailed those obligations and the circumstances that trigger their applicability in a recent joint statement.

Find out more details about the new guidance on digital assets.

In one of its first settlements between federal regulators and a Blockchain provider, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently reached a $24 million settlement with Block.one over allegations that the company conducted an unregistered initial coin offering (ICO), which raised the equivalent of several billion dollars in digital assets in about a year. 

The settlement shines a light on the question as to whether digital assets should be treated as securities, rather than currency.

Learn more about the nuances involved in this matter.

The House recently voted overwhelming in favor of six bipartisan bills, two of which would better protect borrowers seeking loans secured by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and would provide increased access to housing counseling, respectively.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) and Ginnie Mae expressed strong support for two of the bills – H.R. 1988, the “Protecting Affordable Mortgages for Veterans Act,” and H.R. 2162, the “Financial Literacy Act.”

Find out more information about these bills, as well as others that recently passed.

A new rule adopted by five federal financial regulatory agencies would exempt community banks from Volcker Rule requirements, implementing a section of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, which passed in May 2018.

Under the final rule, which does not vary from the proposal, regulators exempt from Volcker Rule compliance obligations community banks with $10 billion or less in total consolidated assets and total trading assets and liabilities of 5 percent or less of total consolidated assets.

Learn more details about the rule and what it means for community banks and other institutions.

More than a year after a federal court vacated the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule, the Securities and Exchange Commission finalized its own set of standards requiring investment advisors to act in their clients’ best interests.

The agency recently approved a package of rulemakings with the goal of enhancing the quality and transparency of relationships retail investors enter into with investment advisers and broker-dealers. 

Find out how the new rules differ from those proposed by DOL. 

Wells Fargo’s fourth quarter high-end estimate for its total losses related to legal actions was half a billion dollars more than what it projected in the third quarter.

This revelation comes as the embattled bank works to resolve investigations into its sales practices by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice. 

Find out more details about the projected losses.

In their first bipartisan action as heads of the House Financial Services Committee, Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Ranking Member Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) introduced a bill to implement preventive measures against illegal insider trading.

H.R. 624 would do so by mandating certain restrictions on when issuers and issuer insiders are able to buy or sell securities during issuer-adopted trading windows, the number of trading plans they can adopt and how often they can modify their trading plans, among other things.

Find out what the Securities and Exchange Commission would have to do to implement the measure.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has identified and charged nine parties for taking part in a scheme to hack the agency’s EDGAR filing system to extract nonpublic financial information to engage in insider trading.

This was not the SEC’s first run-in with some of the defendants. In 2015, the hacker, Ukrainian Oleksandr Ieremenko, and some of the traders involved in the EDGAR scheme were charged in connection with a similar plot to hack unpublished information held by newswire services for the same purpose.

Find out more details about the cybersecurity issues raises by the case.

Barring an act of Congress to block or further delay its implementation, financial institutions will have up to three years to reconcile their accounting practices with the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s (FASB) complex and largely unpopular new Current Expected Credit Loss (CECL) standard.

The financial regulatory agencies’ recent final rule affords certain institutions a transition option to help them adjust to the CECL standard’s day-one adverse effects pertaining to regulatory capital.

Find out what institutions qualify for the phase-in period and what requirements they must meet along the way.

Five federal financial regulators are seeking comments on a proposed rule that would exclude community banks from Volcker Rule restrictions. The jointly proposed rule implements a provision of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act.

FDIC Board Member Martin Gruenberg detailed what he believes should be considered when crafting such exemptions during a recent meeting with the FDIC Board of Directors, including asset thresholds and collateralized debt obligations.

Find out more details about how the exemption would impact community banks.