Topic: Macroeconomics — National Budget
Subject: Finance and financial sector
Date: 2009-11-03 00:00:00

Financial Stability Improvement Act of 2009 - Establishes the Financial Services Oversight Council whose duties include: (1) monitoring the financial services marketplace to identify potential threats to the stability of the U.S. financial system; (2) resolving disputes among federal financial regulatory agencies; (3) subjecting identified financial companies and financial activities to heightened prudential standards in order to promote financial stability and mitigate systemic risk (in this Act referred to as "identified companies or identified activities"); and (4) reporting to Congress on significant financial market developments and potential emerging threats to the stability of the financial system. Requires the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board) to: (1) impose heightened prudential standards upon a identified financial holding company that poses risks to financial stability and the U.S. economy; (2) take prompt corrective action to resolve the problems of such companies; and (3) specify the levels at which an identified financial holding company is well capitalized, undercapitalized, and significantly undercapitalized. Requires an identified financial holding company that is undercapitalized to submit a capital restoration plan acceptable to the Board. Directs the Board to take specified actions with respect to significantly undercapitalized identified financial holding companies (including mandatory bankruptcy for critically undercapitalized identified financial companies). Authorizes the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to extend credit (but not equity) to, or guarantee obligations of, solvent companies engaged in financial activities, if necessary to prevent financial instability during times of severe economic distress. Amends the Home Owners' Loan Act to establish the Division of Thrift Supervision within the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, to which the functions of the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) shall be transferred. Abolishes the OTS. Amends the Bank Holding Company Act (BHCA) to: (1) prescribe treatment of dividends by certain mutual holding companies; and (2) establish special purpose holding companies that are not treated as bank holding companies, or are unitary savings and loan holding companies, or are subject to heightened prudential standards. Subjects transactions between such special purpose holding companies and affiliates to the restrictions and limitations of the Federal Reserve Act. Amends the Revised Statutes of the United States to require the Comptroller to prescribe rules governing credit exposures arising from any derivative transaction, repurchase agreement, reverse repurchase agreement, securities lending transaction, or securities borrowing transaction. Amends the National Bank Consolidation and Merger Act to prohibit state and national banks from converting to either state or national status while they are subject to an enforcement action by the Comptroller. Restricts: (1) lending to insiders; and (2) purchase of assets from insiders. Payment, Clearing, and Settlement Supervision Act of 2009 - Requires the Council, using prescribed criteria, to consider whether to identify a financial market utility or a payment, clearing, or settlement activity as systemically important. Directs the Board to prescribe risk management standards for the operations and conduct of identified financial market utilities and identified activities by financial institutions. Requires such entities to comply with those standards. Prescribes examination and enforcement actions against identified financial market utilities and financial institutions that pose imminent risk of substantial harm. Credit Risk Retention Act of 2009 - Amends the Securities Act of 1933 to direct the federal banking agencies and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to jointly prescribe regulations that require: (1) a creditor that makes a loan to retain an economic interest in a material portion of the credit risk that the creditor transfers, sells, or conveys to a third party, including placing such loan in a pool of loans backing an issuance of asset-backed securities; and (2) a securitizer of certain asset-backed securities to retain an economic interest in a material portion of any asset used to back such securities. Requires the SEC to adopt regulations requiring each issuer of an asset-backed security to disclose: (1) for each tranche or class of security information regarding the assets backing that security; and (2) asset-level or loan-level data necessary for investors to independently perform due diligence. Directs the SEC to prescribe regulations meeting specified requirements on the use of representations and warranties in the asset-backed securities market. Repeals the exemption from the Act's jurisdiction for transactions involving offers or sales of promissory notes directly secured by a first lien on real estate with a residential or commercial structure. Resolution Authority for Large, Interconnected Financial Companies Act of 2009 - Prescribes procedures governing the nature and the extent of actions that the Federal Reserve Board and the appropriate federal regulatory agency may recommend regarding an identified financial holding company whose default would affect economic conditions or financial stability in the United States. Requires the Secretary to appoint the FDIC as receiver of an identified financial holding company that is in default or in danger of default. Amends the Federal Reserve Act, with respect to the discount of obligations arising out of actual commercial transactions, to require the Board to authorize a federal reserve bank to make such a discount. (Currently a federal reserve bank may make such a discount on its own inititative.)