Amendments aimed to fix errors, omissions for deposit insurance assessment rules won’t change much – but may lower payments

Technical amendments to rules about deposit insurance assessments are being made by the federal deposit insurer, which the agency believes will have little or no impact on insurance assessments for insured institutions – except, potentially, to lower their assessments, the agency said.

In filings with the Federal Register, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) said the three changes it is making – effective on publication in the Register (Thursday, April 5) – will:

  • Make clear that small bank assessment credits will be applied for assessment periods in which the reserve ratio of the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) is at least 1.38% instead of, under current rules, just when the ratio exceeds 1.38%.
  • Removes a data item from the assessment regulations that most small banks can no longer report on their call reports (Consolidated Report of Income and Condition).
  • Re-incorporates, for assessment purposes, the capital definitions and ratio thresholds used for prompt corrective action (PCA) that were inadvertently removed in a 2016 rulemaking.

The changes largely address drafting errors in regulations, changes in call reports (such as those made by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council in 2017, which aimed to “streamline” the forms for smaller banks) and fix an inadvertent omission from 2016 of definitions of capital categories for deposit insurance assessment purposes.

“The FDIC believes that the amendments will have little or no effect on the deposit insurance assessments for insured depository institutions (IDIs), and any potential effect would result in lower assessments,” the agency wrote in its summary of the changes.

FDIC Assessment Regulations; amendments