skip to main navigation skip to secondary navigation skip to content
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
skip to content
Payment Systems

Features

Risk Management Supervision of Designated Clearing Entities
The report on supervision of systemically important clearing entities is required by Title VIII of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The purpose of Title VIII of the Act is to mitigate systemic risk in the financial system and promote financial stability through enhanced risk management supervision of systemically important financial market utilities. The Act directed the Board, the CFTC, and the SEC to make recommendations in four areas related to the supervision of clearing entities that are designated by the Financial Stability Oversight Council as systemically important (designated clearing entities). The report contains five recommendations that the Board, the CFTC, and the SEC believe will enhance and reinforce existing supervisory programs and will help further strengthen the government’s oversight of designated clearing entities.
Federal Reserve Board issued a final rule establishing standards for debit card interchange fees and prohibiting network exclusivity arrangements and routing restrictions
Regulation II (Debit Card Interchange Fees and Routing) is required by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The final rule establishes standards for assessing whether debit card interchange fees received by debit card issuers are reasonable and proportional to the costs incurred by issuers. Certain government-administered payment programs and reloadable general-use prepaid cards are exempt from the interchange fee limitations. The rule also prohibits all issuers and networks from restricting the number of networks over which debit transactions may be processed to less than two unaffiliated networks, and from inhibiting a merchant's ability to direct the routing of a debit transaction over any network that the issuer has enabled to process it. The Board also issued an interim final rule that allows for a fraud-prevention adjustment to an issuer's debit card interchange fee if the issuer develops and implements policies and procedures reasonably designed to achieve the fraud-prevention standards set out in the interim final rule.
CPSS and IOSCO consultative report on the Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures
In March 2011, the CPSS and IOSCO released for public comment the consultative report on the Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures. The report harmonizes and strengthens the existing international standards for systemically important payment systems, central securities depositories, securities settlement systems, and central counterparties. The report also proposes new standards for trade repositories, which have emerged as an important category of financial market infrastructure. The CPSS and IOSCO are requesting comment on the document by July 29, 2011, to help them finalize the standards by early 2012.
Proposed Amendments to Regulation CC (Availability of Funds and Collection of Checks)
The Board has requested comment on proposed amendments to Regulation CC. To encourage electronic collection and return of checks, the proposal provides that a depositary bank would be entitled to the expeditious return of a check only if it agrees to receive returned checks electronically. In addition, the proposal permits the bank responsible for paying a check to require that checks presented to it for same-day settlement be presented electronically. Further, due to the shorter timeframes enabled by electronic check-handling methods, the proposal would reduce the safe-harbor period for an exception hold on a check deposit to four business days. Finally, the proposal includes new model forms, developed using consumer testing, that would set forth banks' funds-availability policies in a manner designed to be more easily understood by consumers.
Federal Reserve announces implementation date for changes to the Payment System Risk Policy
September 30, 2010

Last update: September 12, 2012