Agencies Simplify Regulatory Capital Rules — 2019-07-09

The federal bank regulatory agencies today issued a final rule that reduces regulatory burden by simplifying several requirements in the agencies' regulatory capital rules. The simplifications in the final rule only apply to banking organizations that do not use the "advanced approaches" capital framework, which are generally firms with less than $250 billion in total consolidated assets and less than $10 billion in total foreign exposure. The final rule is intended to simplify and clarify a number of the more complex aspects of the agencies' existing regulatory capital rules. Specifically, it simplifies the capital treatment for mortgage servicing assets, certain deferred tax assets, investments in the capital instruments of unconsolidated financial institutions, and minority interest. The final rule also would allow bank holding companies and savings and loan holding companies to redeem common stock without prior approval unless otherwise required.