Title: Continued Encouragement for Consumer Lending Act
Policy area: Finance and Financial Sector

Summary:
Continued Encouragement for Consumer Lending Act
This bill directs the Securities and Exchange Commission and federal financial regulators to report on the implementation of the Current Expected Credit Losses (CECL) accounting standard and its impact on credit availability, capital requirements, and financial institutions. Required compliance with the CECL standard is delayed until one year after submission of this report.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1564 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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116th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                S. 1564

 To require the Securities and Exchange Commission and certain Federal 
agencies to carry out a study relating to accounting standards, and for 
                            other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                              May 21, 2019

Mr. Tillis (for himself, Mr. Moran, Mr. Cramer, Mr. Cotton, Mr. Perdue, 
and Mr. Rounds) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and 
    referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To require the Securities and Exchange Commission and certain Federal 
agencies to carry out a study relating to accounting standards, and for 
                            other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Continued Encouragement for Consumer 
Lending Act''.

SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS.

    In this Act--
            (1) the term ``appropriate committees of Congress'' means--
                    (A) the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban 
                Affairs of the Senate; and
                    (B) the Committee on Financial Services of the 
                House of Representatives;
            (2) the term ``CECL'' means the accounting standard in 
        ``Accounting Standards Update 2016-13, Financial Instruments--
        Credit Losses (Topic 326)'', issued by the Financial Accounting 
        Standards Board in June 2016, as amended by ``Accounting 
        Standards Update 2018-19, Codification Improvements to Topic 
        326, Financial Instruments--Credit Losses'', issued by the 
        Financial Accounting Standards Board in November 2018;
            (3) the term ``Commission'' means the Securities and 
        Exchange Commission;
            (4) the term ``Federal financial regulators'' means--
                    (A) the Secretary of the Treasury;
                    (B) the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve 
                System;
                    (C) the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection;
                    (D) the Comptroller of the Currency;
                    (E) the Commodity Futures Trading Commission;
                    (F) the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation;
                    (G) the Director of the Federal Housing Finance 
                Agency; and
                    (H) the National Credit Union Administration; and
            (5) the term ``small business concern'' has the meaning 
        given the term in section 3(a) of the Small Business Act (15 
        U.S.C. 632(a)).

SEC. 3. STUDY AND REPORT.

    (a) In General.--The Commission and the Federal financial 
regulators, in consultation with the Financial Accounting Standards 
Board, shall conduct a quantitative study of--
            (1) the potential impact that the implementation of CECL 
        may have on the availability of credit, with a particular focus 
        on the impact on that availability--
                    (A) for consumers and small business concerns; and
                    (B) with respect to the credit products on which 
                consumers and small business concerns rely during 
                periods of economic expansion and during recessions;
            (2) whether implementing CECL could--
                    (A) accelerate the depletion of regulatory capital 
                that is available for lending purposes during a 
                recession;
                    (B) have a greater impact on regulatory capital, or 
                extend the period in which regulatory capital is 
                reduced, during a recession; or
                    (C) pose any other systemic risks to the economy of 
                the United States;
            (3) the potentially disproportionate impact that the 
        implementation of CECL may have on financial institutions, 
        taking into account--
                    (A) the various sizes and levels of complexity of 
                those financial institutions; and
                    (B) the different amounts of resources that are 
                available to those financial institutions;
            (4) the potential impact that the implementation of CECL 
        may have on the decisions made by investors; and
            (5) the potential competitive impact that the 
        implementation of CECL may have on institutions in the United 
        States as a result of differing international accounting 
        standards used to measure credit loss.
    (b) Report.--Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of 
this Act, the Commission and the Federal financial regulators shall 
submit to the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the appropriate 
committees of Congress a report--
            (1) regarding the results of the study conducted under 
        subsection (a); and
            (2) that shall include--
                    (A) the identification of any negative impacts 
                resulting from the implementation of CECL; and
                    (B) recommendations for changes to CECL to 
                eliminate or mitigate the negative impacts described in 
                subparagraph (A).

SEC. 4. DELAY IN IMPLEMENTATION OF CECL.

    During the period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act 
and ending on the date that is 1 year after the date on which the 
Commission and the Federal financial regulators submit the report 
required under section 3(b), neither the Commission nor any of the 
Federal financial regulators may require a person to comply with CECL.
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