[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 21 (Thursday, January 31, 2019)]
[Notices]
[Pages 721-723]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-00366]


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM


Agency Information Collection Activities: Announcement of Board 
Approval Under Delegated Authority and Submission to OMB

AGENCY: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
SUMMARY: The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board) 
is adopting a proposal to extend for three years, without revision, the 
Policy Impact Survey (FR 3075 OMB No. 7100-00362).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Federal Reserve Board Clearance 
Officer--Nuha Elmaghrabi--Office of the Chief Data Officer, Board of 
Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Washington, DC, 20551 (202) 
452-3829. Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD) users may 
contact (202) 263-4869, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve 
System, Washington, DC 20551.
    OMB Desk Officer--Shagufta Ahmed--Office of Information and 
Regulatory Affairs, Office of

[[Page 722]]

Management and Budget, New Executive Office Building, Room 10235, 725 
17th Street NW, Washington, DC 20503 or by fax to (202) 395-6974.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On June 15, 1984, the Office of Management 
and Budget (OMB) delegated to the Board authority under the Paperwork 
Reduction Act (PRA) to approve and assign OMB control numbers to 
collection of information requests and requirements conducted or 
sponsored by the Board. Board-approved collections of information are 
incorporated into the official OMB inventory of currently approved 
collections of information. Copies of the PRA submission, supporting 
statements and approved collection of information instrument(s) are 
placed into OMB's public docket files. The Board may not conduct or 
sponsor, and the respondent is not required to respond to, an 
information collection that has been extended, revised, or implemented 
on or after October 1, 1995, unless it displays a currently valid OMB 
control number.
    Final approval under OMB delegated authority of the extension for 
three years, without revision, of the following information collection:
    Report title: Policy Impact Survey.
    Agency form number: FR 3075.
    OMB control number: 7100-0362.
    Frequency: On occasion, up to five times a year.
    Respondents: Bank holding companies (BHCs), savings and loan 
holding companies (SLHCs), nonbank financial companies that the 
Financial Stability Oversight Council has determined should be 
supervised by the Board, and the combined domestic operations of 
foreign banking organizations.
    Estimated number of respondents: 14.
    Estimated average hours per response: 850 hours.
    Estimated annual burden hours: 59,500 hours.
    General description of report: This survey collects information 
from select institutions regulated by the Board in order to assess the 
effects of proposed, pending, or recently-adopted policy changes at the 
domestic and international levels. For example, the survey has been 
used to collect information used for certain quantitative impact 
studies (QISs) sponsored by bodies that the Board is a member of, such 
as the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) and the Financial 
Stability Board (FSB). Recent collections have included the Basel III 
monitoring exercise, which monitors the global impact of the Basel III 
framework,\1\ the global systemically important bank (G-SIB) exercise, 
which assesses firms' systemic risk profiles,\2\ and a survey of the 
domestic systemic risk footprint of large foreign banking 
organizations. The surveys have helped the Board assess changes in 
regulation related to systemic footprint, insurance underwriting, and 
trading book securitization, among other areas. Since the collected 
data may change from survey to survey, there is no fixed reporting 
form.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \1\ For more information on the Basel III monitoring exercise, 
including recent examples of QIS surveys sponsored by the BCBS and 
conducted by the Board, see www.bis.org/bcbs/qis/.
    \2\ For more information on the G-SIB exercise, see www.bis.org/bcbs/gsib/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Legal authorization and confidentiality: The Board is authorized to 
collect the information in the FR 3075 from bank holding companies (and 
their subsidiaries) under section 5(c) of the Bank Holding Company Act 
(12 U.S.C. 1844(c)); from savings and loan holding companies under 
section 10(b)(2) of the Home Owners Loan Act (12 U.S.C. 1467a(b)(2)); 
from non-BHC/SLHC systemically important financial institutions under 
section 161(a) of the Dodd-Frank Act (12 U.S.C. 5361(a)); from the 
combined domestic operations of certain foreign banking organizations 
under section 8(a) of the International Banking Act of 1978 (12 U.S.C. 
3106(a)) and section 5(c) of the Bank Holding Company Act (12 U.S.C. 
1844(c)); from state member banks under section 9 of the Federal 
Reserve Act (12 U.S.C. 324); from Edge and agreement corporations under 
sections 25 and 25A of the Federal Reserve Act (12 U.S.C. 602 and 625); 
and from U.S. branches and agencies of foreign banks under section 
7(c)(2) of the International Banking Act of 1978 (12 U.S.C. 3105(c)(2)) 
and section 7(a) of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 
1817(a)).
    These surveys would be conducted on a voluntary basis. The 
confidentiality of information provided by respondents to the FR 3075 
surveys will be determined on a case-by-case basis depending on the 
type of information provided for a particular survey. Depending upon 
the survey questions, confidential treatment may be warranted under 
exemptions 4, 6, and 8 of the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. 
552(b)(4), (6), and (8)).
    Current actions: On February 16, 2018, the Board published a notice 
in the Federal Register (83 FR 7038) requesting public comment for 60 
days on the extension, without revision, of the Policy Impact Survey. 
The comment period for this notice expired on April 17, 2018. The Board 
received one comment from a trade association.

Detailed Discussion of Public Comments

    The commenter expressed appreciation for QISs, and indicated that 
members of trade associations continue to participate in the voluntary 
surveys because of the surveys' importance for the calibration of 
international standards. The commenter included five recommendations 
for helping the Board maximize the utility of QISs.
    The commenter's first recommendation was that the Board work with 
the Basel Committee to move QIS submission due dates to quarters, such 
as the second quarter, during which stress testing and other regulatory 
reporting requirements do not require significant resources from 
respondent institutions. Although the timeline for development of QISs 
is not under the Board's control, the Board has communicated the 
commenter's concern regarding the timing of QIS submission dates to the 
Basel Committee QIS working group. In cases where there is flexibility 
to move a QIS submission date by one or two weeks, the Board will work 
with the Basel Committee to avoid coincidence with significant 
reporting deadlines to the extent feasible. However, because the 
typical timeframe for the entire QIS process is six months and the 
international working groups often require three or more months to 
develop a QIS, the Board has a limited window for submission dates that 
would allow for cleaning the data and a full analysis of results.
    The commenter's second and third recommendations were to leverage 
data available from other reporting forms to gather data that 
respondents would otherwise report on the QIS, and, to the extent 
feasible, to minimize inconsistency between QIS definitions and 
established market and regulatory definitions. The Board agrees that 
the goals of minimizing duplication and promoting consistent 
definitions are worthwhile. To minimize duplication, the Board already 
periodically reviews QISs and eliminates data items that have become 
available through other reporting channels. The Board will continue to 
work with the sponsoring body of a collection to identify established 
market and regulatory definitions and to minimize any inconsistency 
when feasible.
    The commenter's fourth recommendation was to release for notice and 
comment any QIS that gathers data for the purpose of

[[Page 723]]

calibrating international standards. The Board welcomes feedback on 
current and future QISs from firms both formally, through frequently 
asked questions (FAQs), and informally via newly instituted QIS 
outreach sessions, ad hoc discussions, and emails. As a general matter, 
however, the Board is unable to guarantee the release of QISs for 
notice and comment because international working groups often require 
three or more months to develop QISs, and the typical timeframe for the 
entire QIS process is six months. The full notice-and-comment period 
under the PRA for information collections is 60 days. In order to alter 
such a proposed QIS prior to its finalization, the international 
working groups that develop the QIS would need to reconvene and the 
development process would need to be reopened. Given these constraints, 
the Board may have insufficient time to conduct the final survey and 
analyze the results within the typical six-month QIS timeframe. 
However, when a QIS template is available in advance of the planned 
distribution date, the Board works to distribute the templates to 
respondents early for information purposes, and when time allows, to 
obtain feedback. The Board has sent several proposed collections to 
firms for feedback in advance of the due date, including the end-
December 2017 Basel Monitoring collection, and the newly proposed Basel 
III Monitoring Capital and Liquidity collections. Upon receiving 
feedback from firms, the Board, in conjunction with the Basel Committee 
QIS working group, often revises the templates and applies the feedback 
to subsequent templates in order to enhance the relevance and quality 
of collected data.
    The commenter's final recommendation was for the Board to recognize 
QIS data limitations when applying international standards to U.S. 
institutions. The commenter noted the example of a QIS for the largest 
financial institutions in connection with Basel III, arguing that it 
did not capture the impact of the proposals on all segments of the U.S. 
banking sector, its customers, and the broader U.S. economy. The Board 
recognizes the limitations of QIS data and confirms that QISs are a 
tool that serves as a starting point for assessing the impact of 
proposals.
    The information collection will be extended without revision as 
proposed.

    Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, January 17, 
2019.
Michele Taylor Fennell,
Assistant Secretary of the Board.
[FR Doc. 2019-00366 Filed 1-30-19; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 6210-01-P