H.R. 4790 amends Section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Act, known as the “Volcker Rule,” to streamline the regulatory authority over the Volcker Rule by granting the Federal Reserve the exclusive rulemaking authority and providing for sole examination and enforcement authority by an entity’s primary federal regulator. Community banks also will be exempt from the Volcker Rule if they do not have and are not controlled by an entity with $10 billion or more in total consolidated assets and total trading assets and trading liability that are more than 5% of total consolidated assets.
The summary below was written by the Congressional Research Service, which is a nonpartisan division of the Library of Congress, and was published on Apr 13, 2018.
Volcker Rule Regulatory Harmonization Act
(Sec. 2) This bill amends the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 to grant exclusive rulemaking authority under the Volcker Rule to the Federal Reserve Board. (Currently, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission also have regulatory authority under the Volcker Rule. The Volcker Rule prohibits banking agencies from engaging in proprietary trading or entering into certain relationships with hedge funds and private-equity funds.)
(Sec. 4) The bill exempts from the Volcker Rule banks with total assets: (1) of $10 billion or less, and (2) comprised of 5% or less of trading assets and liabilities.
