Federal Register / Vol. 69, No. 187 / Tuesday, September 28, 2004 / Notices 57931

44 12 U.S.C. 3101–3108.

45As in the case of Edge and agreement 

corporations and their branches, with the approval 

of the designated administrative Reserve Bank, a 

second Reserve Bank may assume the responsibility 

of managing and monitoring the net debit cap of 

particular foreign branch and agency families. This 

would often be the case when the payments activity 

and national administrative office of the foreign 

branch and agency family is located in one District, 

while the oversight responsibility under the 

International Banking Act is in another District. If 

a second Reserve Bank assumes management 

responsibility, monitoring data will be forwarded to 

the designated administrator for use in the 

supervisory process.

1Commission Rule 4.2(d), 16 CFR 4.2(d). The 

comment must be accompanied by an explicit 

request for confidential treatment, including the 

factual and legal basis for the request, and must 

identify the specific portions of the comment to be 

withheld from the public record. The request will 

be granted or denied by the Commission’s General 

Counsel, consistent with applicable law and the 

public interest. See Commission Rule 4.9(c), 16 CFR 

4.9(c).

3. Multi-District Institutions 

Institutions, such as those 

maintaining merger-transition accounts 

and U.S. branches and agencies of a 

foreign bank, that access Fedwire 

through accounts in more than one 

Federal Reserve District are expected to 

manage their accounts so that the total 

daylight overdraft position across all 

accounts does not exceed their net debit 

caps. One Reserve Bank will act as the 

administrative Reserve Bank and will 

have overall risk-management 

responsibilities for institutions 

maintaining accounts in more than one 

Federal Reserve District. For domestic 

institutions that have branches in 

multiple Federal Reserve Districts, the 

administrative Reserve Bank generally 

will be the Reserve Bank where the head 

office of the bank is located. 

In the case of families of U.S. 

branches and agencies of the same 

foreign banking organization, the 

administrative Reserve Bank generally is 

the Reserve Bank that exercises the 

Federal Reserve’s oversight 

responsibilities under the International 

Banking Act.44 The administrative 

Reserve Bank, in consultation with the 

management of the foreign bank’s U.S. 

operations and with Reserve Banks in 

whose territory other U.S. agencies or 

branches of the same foreign bank are 

located, may determine that these 

agencies and branches will not be 

permitted to incur overdrafts in Federal 

Reserve accounts. Alternatively, the 

administrative Reserve Bank, after 

similar consultation, may allocate all or 

part of the foreign family’s net debit cap 

to the Federal Reserve accounts of 

agencies or branches that are located 

outside of the administrative Reserve 

Bank’s District; in this case, the Reserve 

Bank in whose Districts those agencies 

or branches are located will be 

responsible for administering all or part 

of the collateral requirement.45

G. Transfer-Size Limit on Book-Entry 

Securities 

Secondary-market book-entry 

securities transfers on Fedwire are 

limited to a transfer size of $50 million 

par value. This limit is intended to 

encourage partial deliveries of large 

trades in order to reduce position 

building by dealers, a major cause of 

book-entry securities overdrafts before 

the introduction of the transfer-size 

limit and daylight overdraft fees. This 

limitation does not apply to either of the 

following: 

a. Original issue deliveries of bookentry securities from a Reserve Bank to 

an institution. 

b. Transactions sent to or by a Reserve 

Bank in its capacity as fiscal agent of the 

United States, government agencies, or 

international organizations. 

Thus, requests to strip or reconstitute 

Treasury securities or to convert bearer 

or registered securities to or from bookentry form are exempt from this 

limitation. Also exempt are pledges of 

securities to a Reserve Bank as principal 

(for example, discount-window 

collateral) or as agent (for example, 

Treasury Tax and Loan collateral).

By order of the Board of Governors of the 

Federal Reserve System, September 22, 2004. 

Robert deV. Frierson, 

Deputy Secretary of the Board.

[FR Doc. 04–21669 Filed 9–27–04; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6210–01–P

FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION

Agency Information Collection 

Activities; Submission for OMB 

Review; Comment Request

AGENCY: Federal Trade Commission.

ACTION: Notice.

SUMMARY: The Federal Trade 

Commission (‘‘FTC’’ or ‘‘Commission’’) 

has submitted to the Office of 

Management and Budget (OMB) for 

review, as required by the Paperwork 

Reduction Act (‘‘PRA’’), the information 

collection requirements described 

below. The FTC is seeking public 

comments on its proposal to extend 

through October 28, 2007, the current 

PRA generic clearance for a group of 

consumer surveys that will examine the 

comprehensibility of various forms, 

disclosures, and notices required by The 

Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions 

Act of 2003 (‘‘FACTA’’ or ‘‘the Act’’), 

Pub. L. 108–159. That clearance expires 

on October 31, 2004.

DATES: Comments must be submitted on 

or before October 28, 2004.

ADDRESSES: Interested parties are 

invited to submit written comments. 

Comments should refer to ‘‘FACTA 

Surveys: Paperwork Comment, 

[P044804]’’ to facilitate the organization 

of comments. A comment filed in paper 

form should include this reference both 

in the text and on the envelope, and 

should be mailed or delivered to the 

following address: Federal Trade 

Commission/Office of the Secretary, 

Room H–159 (Annex P), 600 

Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., 

Washington, DC 20580. If the comment 

contains any material for which 

confidential treatment is requested, it 

must be filed in paper (rather than 

electronic) form, and the first page of 

the document must be clearly labeled 

‘‘Confidential.’’1 The FTC is requesting 

that any comment filed in paper form be 

sent by courier or overnight service, if 

possible, because U.S. postal mail in the 

Washington area and at the Commission 

is subject to delay due to heightened 

security precautions.

All comments should additionally be 

submitted via facsimile to: Office of 

Management and Budget, Attention: 

Desk Officer for the Federal Trade 

Commission, fax #: (202) 395–6974. 

The FTC Act and other laws the 

Commission administers permit the 

collection of public comments to 

consider and use in this proceeding as 

appropriate. All timely and responsive 

public comments, whether filed in 

paper or electronic form, will be 

considered by the Commission, and will 

be available to the public on the FTC 

Web site, to the extent practicable, at 

http://www.ftc.gov. As a matter of 

discretion, the FTC makes every effort to 

remove home contact information for 

individuals from the public comments it 

receives before placing those comments 

on the FTC Web site. More information, 

including routine uses permitted by the 

Privacy Act, may be found in the FTC’s 

privacy policy, at http://www.ftc.gov/

ftc/privacy.htm.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Requests for additional information 

should be addressed to Lisa M. 

Harrison, (202) 326–3204, or William P. 

Golden, (202) 326–2494, Federal Trade 

Commission, Office of the General 

Counsel, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, 

NW., Washington, DC 20580.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On April 

28, 2004, the FTC submitted a request 

to the Office of Management and Budget 

(OMB) for generic clearance of a group 

of consumer surveys that will examine 

57932 Federal Register / Vol. 69, No. 187 / Tuesday, September 28, 2004 / Notices 

1Commission Rule 4.2(d), 16 CFR 4.2(d). The 

comment must be accompanied by an explicit 

request for confidential treatment, including the 

factual and legal basis for the request, and must 

identify the specific portions of the comment to be 

withheld from the public record. The request will 

be granted or denied by the Commission’s General 

Counsel, consistent with applicable law and the 

public interest. See Commission Rule 4.9(c), 16 CFR 

4.9(c).

the comprehensibility of various forms, 

disclosures, and notices required by 

FACTA. The FTC asked for expedited 

processing of the clearance request 

because of the short deadline for 

completing many of the rulemakings 

mandated by FACTA. The FTC intends 

to use the consumer surveys in order to 

inform these rulemakings. The 

methodologies that may be employed 

for the surveys include personal 

interviews and/or focus groups, 

telephone interviews, and mall 

intercepts. The Commission’s staff 

estimated that the total burden for all 

FACTA-related surveys would be 

approximately 4000 hours. 

On May 12, 2004, OMB approved the 

collection of information through 

October 31, 2004, assigned OMB control 

number 3084–0130, and permitted the 

FTC to provide opportunity for public 

comment while the clearance was in 

effect. On June 18, 2004, the FTC sought 

comment on the information collection 

requirements associated with the group 

of consumer surveys. See 69 FR 34166 

(June 18, 2004). The FTC also sought 

comment on its proposal to extend the 

clearance through October 28, 2007. No 

comments were received. Pursuant to 

the OMB regulations that implement the 

PRA (5 CFR Part 1320), the FTC is 

providing this second opportunity for 

public comment while seeking OMB 

approval to extend the existing 

paperwork clearance. In accordance 

with the terms of the clearance, the FTC 

will submit each survey instrument to 

OMB for review prior to conducting the 

survey. 

Description of the collection of 

information and proposed use: The FTC 

intends to use consumer survey research 

to develop and test the 

comprehensibility of disclosures 

regarding consumer rights and options 

that are mandated by various provisions 

in FACTA. The consumer surveys will 

involve individual interviews by 

telephone or focus groups and mall 

intercepts. For most of the surveys, the 

FTC is seeking consumers with open 

credit card accounts. Recent statistics 

indicate that 75% of adult consumers 

have credit cards. The FTC therefore 

estimates that, for example, a survey 

using 650 respondents will require 

roughly 870 consumers to be screened. 

The FTC will ensure that the selected 

contractors screen potential respondents 

on a set of demographic characteristics 

that will result in a representative 

sample. 

The FTC will contract with a research 

firm for each of the surveys that will 

utilize mall intercept and telephone 

surveys (including screening). For mall 

intercepts, the contractor will screen 

consumers in up to 15 shopping malls 

that represent diverse geographic areas 

of the United States. Respondents may 

be shown sample solicitations and 

asked a series of questions about the 

disclosures contained in the 

solicitations. The results will allow the 

FTC to examine the comprehensibility 

of the disclosures. In addition, some of 

the surveys will utilize personal 

interviews or focus groups to assist the 

FTC in developing the disclosures to be 

tested. 

Burden Statement 

Estimated annual hours burden: The 

surveys that the FTC proposes to 

conduct will use mall intercepts, 

telephone surveys (including screening), 

and, in some cases, personal interviews 

or focus groups. The telephone and mall 

intercepts will involve between 650 and 

1,300 respondents and will take 

between one minute (for screening 

purposes) and 30 minutes per 

respondent; the focus groups and 

personal interviews will involve 

approximately 150 respondents and will 

take up to one hour per respondent. The 

annual burden imposed by each survey 

would range from approximately 90 

hours to 900 hours for a cumulative 

total estimated burden of approximately 

3,500 hours. 

Estimated annual cost burden: The 

cost per respondent should be 

negligible. Participation is voluntary 

and will not require start-up, capital, or 

labor expenditures by respondents. The 

contractors retained by the FTC may pay 

respondents a token honorarium. The 

honorarium is provided as an incentive 

to encourage participation and to 

increase the survey response rate. The 

amount offered will be established at a 

level consistent with the contractor’s 

usual practice. For shorter interviews 

(15 to 30 minutes), the amount will not 

exceed $10. For longer interviews, any 

fees will not exceed $40. 

For each survey, staff estimates that 

obtaining the services of a contractor to 

screen potential respondents, 

administer the survey, and tabulate the 

results will cost approximately $40,000. 

Also, each survey will require 400 

attorney, economist and research 

analyst hours valued at approximately 

$25,000. Therefore, the expected cost to 

the Federal Government for each survey 

will be approximately $65,000.

William E. Kovacic, 

General Counsel.

[FR Doc. 04–21686 Filed 9–27–04; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6750–01–P

FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION

Agency Information Collection 

Activities; Proposed Collection; 

Comment Request; Extension

AGENCY: Federal Trade Commission 

(‘‘FTC’’).

ACTION: Notice.

SUMMARY: The information collection 

requirements described below will be 

submitted to the Office of Management 

and Budget (‘‘OMB’’) for review, as 

required by the Paperwork Reduction 

Act (‘‘PRA’’). The FTC is seeking public 

comments on its proposal to extend 

through December 31, 2005 the current 

PRA clearance for information 

collection requirements for its Mortgage 

Disclosure Study. That clearance 

expires on November 30, 2004.

DATES: Comments must be submitted on 

or before November 29, 2004.

ADDRESSES: Interested parties are 

invited to submit written comments. 

Comments should refer to ‘‘Mortgage 

Disclosure Study—FTC File No. 

P025505,’’ to facilitate the organization 

of comments. A comment filed in paper 

form should include this reference both 

in the text and on the envelope and 

should be mailed or delivered to the 

following address: Federal Trade 

Commission/Office of the Secretary, 

Room H–159 (Annex X), 600 

Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., 

Washington, DC 20580. The FTC is 

requesting that any comment filed in 

paper form be sent by courier or 

overnight service, if possible, because 

U.S. postal mail in the Washington area 

and at the Commission is subject to 

delay due to heightened security 

precautions. Alternatively, comments 

may be filed in electronic form (in 

ASCII format, WordPerfect, or Microsoft 

Word) as part of or as an attachment to 

e-mail messages directed to the 

following e-mail box: 

MortgageDS@ftc.gov. If the comment 

contains any material for which 

confidential treatment is requested, it 

must be filed in paper form, and the first 

page of the document must be clearly 

labeled ‘‘Confidential.’’1

The FTC Act and other laws the 

Commission administers permit the 

collection of public comments to 

consider and use in this proceeding as