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James Stevens

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James provides corporate and regulatory advice to our clients. He has substantial experience in the representation of public and private companies, including banks, neobanks, marketplace lenders, payments companies, crypto and DeFi companies, and other fintech and financial services providers in connection with formation, licensing, sponsorship and program agreements, mergers and acquisitions, debt and equity financing transactions, joint ventures, and regulatory reporting and compliance.

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On December 7, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) published the fall edition of its Semiannual Risk Perspective, which discusses key issues facing banks. From the OCC’s perspective, the overall strength of the banking system remains sound and recessionary pressures appear to be easing. The OCC notes that, while many economists had predicted a decline, gross domestic product increased at an annual rate of 2.1% in the second quarter of 2023, slowing just slightly from the first quarter’s 2.2% pace. However, the OCC also emphasized that inflation remains elevated and a slowing labor market, declining savings, and higher interest rates could cause financial stress to borrowers.

On November 3, the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) voted unanimously to finalize the procedures for designating a nonbank financial company for Federal Reserve supervision. FSOC’s Interpretive Guidance aims to establish a “durable” process for using its nonbank financial company designation authority, maintain rigorous procedural protections for companies reviewed for potential designation, and remove “unwarranted hurdles” to designation imposed by the 2019 Interpretive Guidance. FSOC had issued a proposed Interpretive Guidance in April 2023, which received 47 comments. The final version takes into account those comments.

As discussed here, on August 1, the two major national credit union trade associations — the National Association of Federal Credit Unions (NAFCU) and the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) — announced plans to merge and create a new organization called America’s Credit Unions. Today, CUNA announced that the organizations’ members voted overwhelmingly (94% of CUNA members and 86% of NAFCU members) in favor of the merger. America’s Credit Unions will be legally formed on January 1, 2024.

On October 24, the Federal Reserve Board (Fed), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) (collectively, the agencies) finally issued their long-awaited final rule modernizing how they assess lenders’ compliance under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The CRA was enacted in 1977 to address systemic inequities in access to credit and encourages banks to meet the credit needs of the entire community, including low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities, consistent with safety and soundness principles. The last meaningful, comprehensive revision to the CRA regulations occurred in 1995.

On August 1, the two major national credit union trade associations — the National Association of Federal Credit Unions (NAFCU) and the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) — announced plans to merge and create a new organization called America’s Credit Unions. The goal of the merger would be to form a single credit union trade group “to serve credit unions more efficiently and effectively” through “one strong and united voice.”

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September 12-14, 2023

Keith Barnett, Jason Cover, James Kim, Kim Phan, Jean Smith-Gonnell, James Stevens, Misha Tseytlin, Rich Zack, Ketan Bhirud, Carlin McCrory, and Caleb Rosenberg will be speaking on a variety of topics during the TPPPA 2023 Solving the Payments Puzzle Conference, which will be held September 12 – 14, 2023 in…

On August 29, at a Board Meeting for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Comptroller of the Currency Michael J. Hsu issued a statement supporting the insured depository institution (IDI) Resolution Plan Rule, which would require covered banks to develop and submit detailed plans demonstrating how they could be resolved in an orderly fashion in the event of receivership. Describing the impetus for this rule, Comptroller Hsu stated, “as the large bank failures of this spring have shown, banks and regulators cannot afford to be complacent when it comes to resolution.”

On August 29, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (collectively, the agencies) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking with request for public comment on a proposal that would require banks with total assets of $100 billion or more to maintain a layer of long-term debt. The stated objective of the proposed rule is to “improve the resolvability of these banking organizations in case of failure, reduce costs to the Deposit Insurance Fund, and mitigate financial stability and contagion risks by reducing the risk of loss to uninsured depositors.” This proposal follows an advance notice of proposed rulemaking issued in October 2022 by the Federal Reserve and the FDIC that looked at several possible changes, including a long-term debt requirement to promote more orderly resolutions for large banks.