Financial Institutions Regulatory partner Douglas Landy, who is a former lawyer at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, commented in the Thompson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence article “U.S. Fed Meeting on Volcker Rule Paves Way for Substantive Changes in Early 2019.” Following the Fed’s May 30 announcement of proposed changes to the Volcker Rule, the expected changes could become finalized by the spring of 2019. Mr. Landy stated, “All the agencies are signed off at this point,” and, “It wouldn’t be going to the (Fed) governors if they hadn’t.” The agencies involved with overseeing the rule are the OCC, Federal Reserve, and FDIC, as well as the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Among the list of changes, updates could be seen with the so-called 60-day presumption on proprietary trading; the inventory of securities that banks hold to meet future client demand (“reasonably expected near-term demand” or “RENTD”); the flexibility given to banks to adjust their determinations of the reasonable amount of inventory; simplification of the rule’s parameters on making investments in “covered funds”; and reducing the compliance costs for keeping within the rule’s parameters. Mr. Landy noted, “You will see some relief on reporting and metrics and other compliance issues.”
