(ii) No later than June 30, 2001, any insured or affiliated depositary that was a party to the Agreement shall be provided by any competent supervisory authority, either an affiliated entity that is a party to the Agreement or an affiliate of a Party to the Agreement, or written comments that must be included in the CRA`s public record of that insured depositary institution. [17] The Regulatory Flexibility Act (5 U.S.C. 604) requires an agency to publish a final analysis of regulatory flexibility when it publishes a final rule that has been the subject of notices and comments, unless it certifies that the rule will not have a significant economic impact on a significant number of small businesses. The BCC considers that this rule will not have a significant economic impact on a significant number of small national banks, subsidiaries of the SNB or ENTERPRISES that are parties to covered agreements with national banks or their subsidiaries. This final regulation reaffirms the legal requirements and contains provisions to reduce the administrative burden on businesses and individuals of all sizes. The OCC has prepared the following final analysis of regulatory flexibility because the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act imposes requirements that are new to the OCC and those subject to the rule, and because the OCC is currently unable to definitively assess the economic impact of compliance with the new requirements of the rule. Three examples concern contacts, which are communications from credit rating agencies, and would therefore result in a written agreement to which ngep is a party to be a covered agreement. In the first example, an NGEP submits a written comment to a Bundesbank agency in response to a general request for an agency`s opinion on a request to open a new branch. Home Print page 2058The NGEP statement states that the insured custodian applicant has successfully met the credit needs of his community.

In the second example, an NGEP explains to an agent of an insured depositary that the institution needs to improve its performance of the credit rating agency. Both examples illustrate a contact in which the institution`s CRA certificate of completion is explicitly mentioned. (4) The Agreement is entered into under the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (12 U.S.C. 2901 et seq.) or in connection with its application of that Community Reinvestment Act (12 U.S.C. 2901 et seq.). (CRA), as defined in § 35.4. The final rule follows the proposed rule by providing that all cash payments, grants, counterparties or loans granted by an insured depositary or an affiliate under the agreement, including amounts made available to natural or legal persons who are not parties to the agreement, are made available to determine whether an agreement meets the dollar thresholds of the rule, be taken into account. However, the rule provides that if an agreement includes a loan, loan extension or loan commitment that, if executed separately, would be excluded from coverage and also provides that the institution or affiliate provides for other means or resources, the parties may exclude the exempted loan, loan extension or loan commitment, when determining whether the agreement meets the dollar thresholds of the rule. (See section __.2(e)(2) of the Rule and the discussion in section III.A.2.b. above on eligible loans).

The exception in Article 48(e)(1)(B)(iii) would become meaningless over time if the exemption is lost due to statements about the credit rating agency made well before or after an agreement. In the absence of a temporal relationship, all persons who may have entered into agreements with insured custodians or their affiliates in respect of activities that receive favourable consideration from the credit rating agency would likely feel compelled to keep records to determine whether a person in the credit rating agency has already established contact with the CRA, to ensure that the NGEP complies with the CRA`s exemption and Sunshine Regulations. This would impose a significant burden on individuals, including businesses, community organizations and individuals, who would have to be favoured with the exception. For many of these organizations, this would mean ongoing, long-term monitoring and review of the contacts of many employees or members. By sending a copy of covered agreements and annual reports to the Federal Reserve, one of the five methods used to assess a bank`s performance based on its size and mission. Although an update by the credit rating agency in 1995 required regulators to take into account credit and investment data, the assessment process is somewhat subjective and banks do not have to meet specific quotas. Under those provisions, material and intentional non-compliance with Article 48 by an NGEP may result in the inapplicability of the covered agreement concerned. In particular, under Article 48(f)(1), Article 48(f)(1) of the Agreement is unenforceable if it determines that an NGEP has intentionally failed to comply with Article 48 in a material manner and that the NGEP is not complying with the law upon receipt of notice and a reasonable period of time to correct the area of non-compliance. Many commentators have also argued that failure to establish a temporal link between a credit rating agency opinion and a covered agreement would forever disqualify an NGEP for exemption on the basis of a credit rating agency opinion, regardless of when it took place, the impact it has on a written agreement or how circumstances may have changed.

They argued that this would significantly affect freedom of expression and the right to comment with a federal agency. OTS cannot predict exactly how savings associations, subsidiaries and NGEPs will comply with the final rule as the requirements are new. For example, OTS cannot assess the extent to which savings associations, affiliates and NGEP will avoid the conclusion of covered agreements as a result of the final regulation. A common concern expressed by commentators was that the law and rule would have exactly that effect. (l) Competent supervisory authority. The `competent supervisory authority` for a covered agreement means the competent agency of the Bundesbank for: (a) agreements concluded by the same parties. All written agreements involving an insured deposit-taking institution or an affiliate of the insured deposit-taking institution are considered a single agreement if the agreements — Estimated debit hours of NSEs per agreement: 6 hours. (B) An employee responsible for compliance with the credit rating agency or an officer if the employee or agent knows that the institution or affiliate is conducting negotiations, intends to negotiate, or has been informed by the NGEP that he or she expects the institution or affiliate to negotiate an agreement with the NGEP. (5) Duration of the engagement.

The obligation to disclose a covered agreement to the public ends 12 months after the end of the contractual period. A subsidiary of an insured custodian participates in mortgages and provides credit counselling services. The insured depositary has chosen to have only the mortgage lending activities of the subsidiary taken into account in its latest performance assessment by the credit rating agency. The affiliate and a community group enter into an agreement that provides for the affiliate to provide credit counselling services in the local community. The agreement is not in compliance with the credit rating agency because the affiliate is not considered a partner of the CRA in its credit counselling activities. Therefore, the agreement is not a covered agreement. The agencies believe that many of the concerns expressed by these commenters are being addressed through changes to enforcement, CRA communication, and other sections of the rule. In addition, a wide range of agreements between insured custodians and affiliates and law firms are not covered by the final rule, as the definition of “entity or non-governmental person” in the final rule excludes any natural or legal person acting as a representative of an insured depositary or affiliate. (See section __.11.) Therefore, many agreements between law firms and insured custodians and affiliates would not be considered covered agreements because the agreement provides that the law firm acts as a representative of the institution or affiliate. The agencies sought feedback on the treatment of CRA partners and on the treatment of agreements relating to affiliates that are not CRA partners at the time of entering into an agreement, but become CRA partners during the term of an agreement. .