Use of Community Development Loans by Community Financial Institutions To Secure Advances; Secured Lending by Federal Home Loan Banks to Members and Their Affiliates; Transfer of Advances and New Business Activity Regulations
Use of Community Development Loans by Community Financial Institutions To Secure Advances; Secured Lending by Federal Home Loan Banks to Members and Their Affiliates; Transfer of Advances and New Business Activity Regulations
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Thomas E. Joseph, Senior Attorney Advisor, thomas.joseph@fhfa.gov, (202) 414-3095 (not a toll-free number); Office of General Counsel, Federal Housing Finance Agency, Fourth Floor, 1700 G Street, NW., Washington, DC 20552; or Julie Paller, Senior Financial Analyst, julie.paller@fhfa.gov, 202-408- 2842 (not a toll-free number); Division of Federal Home Loan Bank Regulation, Federal Housing Finance Agency, 1625 Eye Street, NW., Washington, DC 20006. If you are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability, please dial 7-1-1 to access telecommunications relay services. Additionally, the TDD 1-(800) number referenced in Rulemaking documents attached to this page is obsolete and the 7-1-1 number should be used.
SUMMARY: Section 1211 of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA) amended the Federal Home Loan Bank Act (Bank Act) to expand the types of eligible collateral that community financial institution (CFI) members may pledge to secure Federal Home Loan Bank (Bank) advances to include secured loans for community development activities and to allow Banks to make long term advances to CFI members for purposes of financing community development activities. Section 1211 further provides that the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) shall define the term "community development activities" by regulation. To implement these provisions, FHFA is amending the advances regulation to allow CFI members to pledge community development loans as collateral for advances and is adopting a definition of "community development" as proposed. The final rule also will transfer the advances and new business activities rules from parts 950 and 980 of the Federal Housing Finance Board (FHFB) regulations, to new parts 1266 and 1272 of the FHFA regulations, respectively, and make other conforming amendments. Finally, the final rule will make a change to the advances regulation to incorporate a long-standing policy previously established by the FHFB that secured lending to a member of any Bank is an advance that must meet the requirements of the advances regulation. The final rule language has been clarified to assure that certain types of transactions, such as derivatives, will not be considered secured lending for the purposes of this provision. The new provision addressing secured lending does not include a prohibition on secured transactions with affiliates of members, as was initially proposed.
DATES: The final rule is effective on January 10, 2011.