RICHARD W. COFFMAN

 General Counsel

 E-mail: rcoffman@iib.org

 INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL BANKERS

299 Park Avenue, 17th Floor

New York, N.Y. 10171

Direct: (646) 213-1149

Facsimile: (212) 421-1119

Main: (212) 421-1611

www.iib.org

March 30, 2015

Christopher Stein

Chief, Services Surveys Branch (BE-50)

Balance of Payments Division

Bureau of Economic Analysis

U.S. Department of Commerce

Washington, DC 20230

Re: International Services Surveys: BE-180, Benchmark Survey of Financial Services 

Transactions Between U.S. Financial Services Providers and Foreign Persons, RIN 0691-AA84, 80 

Federal Register 4228 (January 27, 2015)

Dear Mr. Stein:

The Institute of International Bankers (IIB) appreciates the opportunity to offer its comments on the 

Bureau of Economic Analysis’ (BEA) proposal to require all U.S. financial services providers with financial 

transactions totaling $3 million or more on a consolidated basis with non-U.S. persons to report such 

transactions on Form BE-180, Benchmark Survey of Financial Services Transactions Between U.S. 

Financial Services Providers and Foreign Persons, regardless of whether they have been contacted by 

the BEA. Failure to file can result in civil and criminal penalties, including imprisonment. By virtue of the 

lower dollar threshold for mandatory reporting and the requirement that covered U.S. persons submit 

the required information regardless of whether they are contacted by BEA, the BEA’s proposal expands 

not only the number of institutions subject to the requirement, but also the granularity of the 

information required to be reported as compared to the BE-185 quarterly reporting regime.

 

The IIB is the only national association devoted exclusively to representing and advancing the interests 

of the international banking community in the United States. Our membership is comprised of 

internationally-headquartered banking and financial institutions from over 35 countries around the 

world doing business in the United States. IIB members operate in the United States through a 

multitude of “financial services providers” (as defined in proposed rule 801.9(c)), including branches of 

the parent bank, wholly-owned insured depository institutions, commercial finance companies, 

registered broker-dealers and other financial services companies. By the very nature of their foreign 

ownership, the U.S. operations of IIB member institutions are more likely to enter into reportable 

transactions than their U.S.-headquartered counterparts, and in particular there is a greater likelihood 

that they will have a considerably greater number of transactions with affiliated persons to report. As 

such, our members would be strongly impacted by the proposal.

___________________________________________________________________

The Institute’s mission is to help resolve the many special legislative, regulatory

and tax issues confronting internationally headquartered financial institutions

that engage in banking, securities and/or insurance activities in the United States.

___________________________________________________________________
 

INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL BANKERS

For those institutions that currently are not required to submit quarterly BE-185 reports, the proposal 

will present considerable challenges to gathering and reporting the information required by BE-180 on a 

timely basis. The challenges are likewise significant for those currently reporting quarterly on BE-185 

inasmuch as BE-180 requires reporting (i) on a different threshold and (ii) for the entire fiscal year. In 

both cases, these considerations are magnified for those institutions with complex U.S. operations. We 

respectfully request that BEA adopt an accommodating approach toward providing our member 

institutions extensions of time to submit their reports. We believe this approach is especially 

appropriate at a time when the U.S. operations of many of our members are subject to other extensive, 

new reporting requirements with respect to, for example, metrics reporting under the Volcker Rule,1 the 

liquidity monitoring reporting requirements proposed by the Federal Reserve,2 Dodd-Frank Act stress 

testing (DFAST) and the Federal Reserve’s Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) program.

Please do not hesitate to contact the undersigned, should you wish to discuss this matter further.

Sincerely yours,

Richard W. Coffman

General Counsel

1

 The final regulations implementing the Volcker Rule require certain large foreign and domestic banks 

and their affiliates to provide quantitative measurements regarding financial instruments traded by the firm. 

These measurements, to be reported on a per desk basis regardless of where the desk is located, include: risk and 

position limits and usage; risk factor sensitivities; value at risk and stress VaR; comprehensive profit and loss 

attribution; inventory turnover, inventory aging and customer facing ratio. While the largest firms are already 

providing this information on a quarterly basis within 30 days of the close of the quarter (T+30), they will, in the 

near future, be required to provide this information on a T+10 basis. Other firms are being phased into the 

reporting regime during the spring and fall of 2016.

2

 The Federal Reserve has proposed to require foreign banks with greater than $50 billion in U.S. assets 

to report on Form 2052a on a monthly (and, for some banks, daily) basis extensive information regarding the 

liquidity of their U.S. operations. These reports would be required to be filed on a two business day (T+2) basis 

and, as currently, proposed would commence in July 2016. Some financial firms have estimated that proposed 

Form FR 2052a will require reporting on 66,000 data elements.

2