On May 29, 2015, the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Federal Reserve Board (collectively, the "federal bank regulatory agencies") approved a notice requesting comment on a third set of regulatory categories as part of their review to identify outdated or unnecessary regulations applied to insured depository institutions. The Economic Growth and Regulatory Paperwork Reduction Act of 1996 requires federal bank regulatory agencies to review their regulations at least once every 10 years and to categorize and publish the regulations for comment. Consistent with the EGRPRA, the federal bank regulatory agencies have grouped regulations applicable to insured depository institutions into 12 regulatory categories: (i) Applications and Reporting; (ii) Banking Operations; (iii) Capital; (iv) Community Reinvestment Act; (v) Consumer Protection; (vi) Directors, Officers and Employees; (vii) International Operations; (viii) Money Laundering; (ix) Powers and Activities; (x) Rules of Procedure; (xi) Safety and Soundness; and (xii) Securities. The latest notice seeks comment on regulations in the following three categories: (i) Consumer Protection; (ii) Directors, Officers and Employees; and (iii) Money Laundering. Comments will be accepted within 90 days after publication in the Federal Register. Although the current notice seeks comment on the three specifically enumerated categories above, comments are accepted on any of the established categories of regulation as well as on all rules that have been finalized before the publication of the last EGRPRA notice which is expected by year-end. The European Commission also recently launched its Better Regulation Agenda, which among other things, aims to improve the review of existing EU laws.

The Federal Register Notice is available at: https://www.fdic.gov/news/news/press/2015/pr15044a.pdf.

For more information, the EGRPRA website is available at: http://egrpra.ffiec.gov/.

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