OCC finalizes revised licensing requirements

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency finalized a rule updating licensing requirements for community banks and scrapped a decades-old fair-housing monitoring system, moves the agency said are intended to ease regulatory pressures on smaller institutions.

The changes were originally proposed last year as part of a broader package aimed at streamlining oversight of community banks. Under the final rule, the OCC is establishing a new definition of a “covered community bank or covered community savings association.” Institutions that fall under this definition and apply for licensing actions will be eligible for expedited reviews or pared-down filing requirements.

The agency also officially eliminated its Fair Housing Home Loan Data System, created in 1979 to track national banks’ compliance with federal fair-housing and credit laws. The OCC said the system has become outdated and largely redundant because other legal frameworks already require banks to maintain key home-loan application data.

Both rules will take effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register.