As the industry prepares for the discontinuation of Libor, the CFPB today finalized changes to Regulation Z designed to facilitate the transition to alternate reference rates. The final rule amends open-end and closed-end provisions to provide examples of replacement indexes for Libor indexes that meet Reg Z standards.
The American Bankers Association and a coalition of trade groups today urged congressional leaders to pass H.R. 4616, the Adjustable Interest Rate (Libor) Act. The legislation addresses “tough legacy” contracts that currently reference Libor, which will cease to be published by June 2023.
The American Bankers Association and a coalition of trade groups today—in response to an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking by the Department of Housing and Urban Development—asked the Federal Housing Administration to issue a clear roadmap for servicers of FHA-insured adjustable-rate mortgages as the agency transitions from Libor to alternative reference rates.
As required by state laws passed in New York and Alabama, the Alternative Reference Rates Committee published a statement today selecting and recommending forms of the Secured Overnight Financing Rate—its preferred alternative to Libor—along with associated spread adjustments and conforming changes, to replace references to 1-week and 2-month U.S. dollar Libor in certain contracts affected by the state laws.
In a lengthy farewell speech today as his tenure on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors comes to a close, former Vice Chairman for Supervision Randal Quarles outlined several “further refinements to the bank supervisor and regulatory framework” that still need to be made in the near term, including further calibration of leverage capital standards.
Refinitiv, the Alternate Reference Committee’s chosen provider to publish fallback rates for cash products based on the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, today announced that its USD IBOR Institutional Cash Fallbacks are now available for immediate use as production benchmarks.
Paycheck Protection Program lending helped to soften the effects of the pandemic-related recession on state-level employment growth, and had “significant” benefits overall, the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland concluded in a new research brief last week.
With certain tenors of Libor set to sunset at the end of 2021, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has issued a request for information on potential ways to amend its swap clearing requirement to address the transition away from Libor to alternative reference rates.
Credit quality for both loans secured by farmland and agricultural production loans improved in 2021, ag lenders reported in the joint ABA-Farmer Mac Agricultural Lenders Survey. In the next 12 months, lenders expect credit quality will either moderately improve or stay the same.
A majority of ag lenders—69.7%—reported that overall farm profitability increased in the prior year, due in large part to government support, which is estimated to account for 38% of ag borrowers’ net income, according to the 2021 Agricultural Lenders Survey conducted by ABA and Farmer Mac.