On December 9, 2021, Acting OCC Comptroller Michael Hsu made remarks before the Consumer Federation of America's 34th Annual Financial Services Conference to address the use of bank overdraft fees.

On December 2, 2021, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) Ombudsman’s Office published its annual report outlining their response efforts since the last report and their strategic plan goals for the next two years. Included in these goals is the Ombudsman’s determination that it, going forward, it would conduct post-examination surveys of supervised entities. This decision was made in response to a pilot test-run that was initiated by a request from the CFPB.

On December 8, 2021, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) released their Supervisory Highlights report, “which shines a light on legal violations identified by the CFPB’s examinations in the first half of 2021.” This report identified several violations by financial institutions during the first half of 2021.

On December 1, 2021, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (“FFIEC”) released a new section and updated three existing sections of the Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering (“BSA/AML”) Examination Manual.

On November 29, 2021, two House Financial Services Committee members, chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Bill Foster (D-IL), sent federal regulators a letter requesting specific oversight on the implementation of artificial intelligence in the financial services industry to ensure the prevention of algorithmic bias.

On December 3, 2021, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) issued a news release soliciting academic-focused papers and policy-focused research on the impact of banking on climate risk to be presented to the OCC on June 6-7, 2022.

On December 1, 2021, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) issued a news release asserting that their research evidenced banks’ “deep dependence” on utilizing overdraft fees dating back to 2015. As a result, the CFPB “will be enhancing its supervisory and enforcement scrutiny of banks that are heavily dependent on overdraft fees.”

On November 16, 2021, Acting Comptroller of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Michael J. Hsu, attended the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's Fifth Annual FinTech Conference and discussed “Modernizing the Financial Regulatory Perimeter.” The discussion centered around his beliefs on the need to subject FinTech and crypto firms offering banking services to the banking regulatory framework.

On November 22, 2021, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) published a request for public comment on the effectiveness of Regulation Cthe regulation that would implement amendments to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act made by section 1094 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act).

On November 22, 2021, the European Central Bank (ECB) released a report on The State of Climate and Environmental Management in the Banking Sector. In its report, the ECB outlined 13 supervisory expectations, requested compliance from 112 European Institutions , and outlined certain “good practices” for these institutions to consider going forward.

On November 16, 2021, eight individual application programmable interface (API) and several data and security compliance companies, serving as founding supporters, announced a new open finance data security standards body called the Open Finance Data Security Standard (OFDSS).

On November 18, 2021, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued a joint final rule establishing notice requirements for computer-security incidents occurring in banking organizations and bank service providers.

On November 10, 2021, the U.S. Department of the Treasury issued program implementation guidance for the State Small Business Credit Initiative Program. This program is intended to “mobilize local sources of capital, such as community banks” to promote “American entrepreneurship” and to increase access to startup capital, especially in underserved communities.

On November 10, 2021, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and federal and state financial regulators announced that the emergency joint policy statement released during the 2021 coronavirus pandemic, which temporarily suspended supervisory or enforcement actions for certain Regulation X violations, shall no longer apply to Regulation X violations which occur after November 10, 2021.

On November 3, 2021, the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation announced the creation of the International Sustainability Standards Board at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of Parties (“COP26”) that was held in Glasgow, Scotland. The ISSB is tasked with developing a comprehensive set of baseline sustainability standards for global useincluding establishing global sustainability mandatory disclosure standards for the financial markets.

On October 29, 2021, the Texas Finance Commission (TFC) adopted amendments to many rules governing residential mortgage licensees. These amendments will be applicable to (1) licensed Mortgage Loan Companies and (2) licensed Mortgage Bankers and Mortgage Loan Originators (MLOs) and became effective November 4, 2021.

On November 6, 2021, the bipartisan Build Back Better Act was passed by the House. The implementation of the bill comes after significant cuts were made to the bill – including programs previously alleged to benefit small businesses.

On November 2, 2021, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Chairman, Jelena McWilliams announced the creation of their new Office of Minority and Community Development Banking.

On October 25, 2021, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced their selection of the three willing teams that will assist in a new initiative “designed to explore new technologies and techniques to help community banks, and the banking sector as a whole, evaluate how well they can withstand a major disruption of any type.”

On October 28, 2021, President Biden announced his administration’s new ‘Build Back Better’ Framework, which was intended to assist in the drafting of legislative language of the Build Back Better Act.