[Federal Register Volume 74, Number 9 (Wednesday, January 14, 2009)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 1992-1993]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E9-430]


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SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

13 CFR Part 120

RIN 3245-AF83


Business Loan Program Regulations: Incorporation of London 
Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) Base Rate and Secondary Market Pool 
Interest Rate Changes

AGENCY: U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).

ACTION: Interim Final Rule, notice of reopening of comment period.

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SUMMARY: SBA is reopening the comment period for an additional 90 days.

DATES: Comments on the interim final rule on Business Loan Program 
Regulations: Incorporation of London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) 
Base Rate and Secondary Market Pool Interest Rate Changes, must be 
received on or before April 14, 2009.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by 3245-AF83, by any of 
the following methods:
     Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. 
Follow the instructions for submitting comments.
     Mail, Hand Delivery/Courier: Grady Hedgespeth, Director, 
Office of Financial Assistance, U.S. Small Business Administration, 409 
3rd Street, SW., Washington, DC 20416.
    All comments will be posted on http://www.regulations.gov. If you 
wish to include within your comment confidential business information 
(CBI) as defined in the Privacy and Use Notice/User Notice at http://www.regulations.gov, and you do not want that information disclosed, 
you must submit the comments by either Mail or Hand Delivery and you 
must address the comment to Grady Hedgespeth, Director, Office of 
Financial Assistance. In the submission, you must highlight the 
information that you consider to be CBI and explain why you believe 
this information should be held confidential. SBA will make a final 
determination, in its discretion, of whether information is CBI and, 
therefore, the comments will not be published.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Grady Hedgespeth, Director, Office of 
Financial Assistance, 202-205-7562, or [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On November 13, 2008, SBA published in the 
Federal Register an interim final rule permanently adding a base rate 
of LIBOR for lenders to use when pricing 7(a) loans and allowing for 
secondary market loan pools to be formed with weighted average coupon 
rates. (73 FR 67099). This rule was added to help ensure continued 
availability of capital to small businesses and to improve liquidity in 
and efficiency of the secondary market for SBA loans. The original 
comment period ended on December 15, 2008. SBA is reopening the comment 
period for a limited time until April 14, 2009 in order to solicit 
additional comments as our lending partners and secondary market 
participants continue to implement the two changes allowed in the 
interim final rule. Some SBA partners are still updating their systems 
to incorporate LIBOR based loans. SBA's recently published Procedural 
Notice No. 5000-1081: One Month LIBOR Plus 3 Percent Allowed as SBA 
Base Rate (Nov. 14, 2008) and SBA Information Notice: Implementation of 
SBA's Addition of LIBOR Plus 3 Percent as a Base Rate (Nov. 20, 2008), 
both of which can be found at http://www.sba.gov. Additionally, 
procedures for weighted average coupon pools were recently released by 
SBA. SBA Procedural Notice

[[Page 1993]]

No. 5000-1086: Initiative to Facilitate the Sale of SBA 7(a) Loans on 
the Secondary Market (Dec. 17, 2008), which can be found at http://www.sba.gov. SBA would like to ensure that lenders and secondary market 
participants are afforded an opportunity to comment on the interim 
final rule as they fully implement these program changes.

    Authority: 15 U.S.C. 634.

Eric Zarnikow,
Associate Administrator, Office of Capital Access.
[FR Doc. E9-430 Filed 1-13-09; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 8025-01-P