The risk-based supervision approach is now incorporated into a booklet used by the national bank regulator to assess compliance with statutes designed to provide protections to active-duty customers in the U.S. armed services, the agency said Thursday.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) said its updates to the Comptroller’s Handbook of the “Servicemembers Civil Relief Act” booklet “provides information and procedures for examiners in connection with the consumer protections that servicemembers are eligible for under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA).”
In addition to applying the OCC’s risk-based supervision approach to assessing bank compliance with the SCRA, the agency said the revised booklet also:
- eliminates the prior OCC policy requirement to conduct an SCRA examination that included transaction testing at least once every three supervisory cycles;
- clarifies language on servicemember verification and distribution of excess payments; and,
- removes references to reputation risk (which the agency earlier this year removed from its guidances and has now proposed through rulemaking to ban its use entirely).
The agency said the new booklet replaces version 1.0 of the booklet with the same title issued four years ago. Also rescinded, the agency said, is OCC Bulletin 2021-11, “Servicemembers Civil Relief Act: Revised Comptroller’s Handbook Booklet and Rescissions,” which transmitted version 1.0 of the booklet.
The SSCRA is designed to protect active-duty military members from civil and financial liability while serving. Among other things, the law caps interest rates on some loans at 6%, protects against default judgments and eviction, and allows for the termination of some contracts such as cell phone plans without penalty when service members are relocated.
OCC Bulletin 2025-36: Servicemembers Civil Relief Act: Updated Comptroller’s Handbook Booklet
Leave a Reply