In a proposal jointly developed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), the Federal Reserve Board announced updates to the policies and procedures governing administrative proceedings for supervised financial institutions.
The main purpose of these updates is to recognize the use of electronic communications in all aspects of administrative hearings and to increase the efficiency and fairness of administrative adjudication.
The majority of the changes are simply updates to allow existing procedure to conform to current, common technology and formalize practices that have already been done on an ad hoc basis prior to these rule changes. This includes expanding the usage of electronic signatures to satisfy good faith certification requirements; and increasing the occasions when e-filing or electronic transmission of documents is acceptable.
The proposal also would remove any remaining references to the Office of Thrift Supervision which was abolished in 2011; change gendered language such as “him or her”, “his or her,” or “himself or herself” to gender-neutral terminology; and replace the world “shall” with the words “must,” “will,” or other appropriate language.
Public comment regarding these rules proposals will be accepted by the Fed for 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register.