Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee today, federal banking regulators said they intend to propose “burden-reducing” changes to the Call Report.
“We have received comments from institutions and others about the cost and burden of preparing Call Reports,” said FDIC supervisory official Doreen Eberley. “We have talked to the industry about ways to improve Call Reports and the reporting process, and we will pursue several actions in the near term. For example, we plan to propose certain burden-reducing changes this year and implement a more robust process for bank agency users to justify retaining or adding items to the Call Report.”
The OCC’s official for mid-sized and community banks, Toney Bland, added that the interagency task force on the Call Report will do “a comprehensive review of every line item of every schedule in the Call Report to identify data items that we can delete.” ABA has aggressively advocated with regulators for changes that would reduce the burden of unnecessary Call Report filings for community banks.
Regulators also said they had heard ABA members’ concerns about “trickle-down regulation” — supervisory requirements for large banks being applied to community banks as “best practices.” Federal Reserve official Maryann Hunter said the Fed is adjusting its examiner training “to ensure that expectations are calibrated appropriately.”
