Along lines long urged by the American Bankers Association, the federal banking agencies today proposed a new, shorter Call Report with simplified instructions for banks with less than $1 billion in assets and no foreign offices. The new Call Report form would be reduced from 85 pages to 61 as a result of removing 950 data items, or about 40 percent of entries on the current Call Report.
The revised Call Report would also streamline how banks report on their complex activities, with existing schedules on complex or specialized activities — such as derivatives, trading or credit card lending — being replaced with simple questions that ask whether banks engage in the activities and indicate specific data items to fill out if they do. Some schedules would also be filed on an annual or semiannual basis.
The proposal comes after ABA helped over the past several years to facilitate conference calls with community bankers and regulators to explain current Call Report burdens and offer suggestions for streamlining it. ABA anticipates future proposals related to Call Report reform in the future. If adopted, the new Call Report would take effect with the March 31, 2017, report date. Comments on the proposal are due 60 days after it is published in the Federal Register. For more information, or to contribute feedback for ABA’s comment letter, contact ABA’s Alison Touhey.
