A year ago today, the Dodd-Frank Act was signed into law.  Today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “stands up,” the Office of Thrift Supervision has 90 days to live, and the Comptroller General’s study on the independence of presidentially appointed inspectors general of certain federal entities was due to Congress (don’t worry if you missed that last one).  For many provisions of the Act, the legislation requires that implementing rules were to be finalized by today.  As few of the hundreds of required rules have actually been proposed yet alone finalized, there is an argument that those aspects of the law requiring rules by today are not yet effective.  Provisions of the law that are certainly effective today:

• Preemption standard for national banks and federal thrifts is altered
• Codification of the requirement that a bank holding company act as a “source of strength” for any subsidiary that is a depository institution
• Federal Reserve is authorized to issue orders and regulations relating to the capital requirements of holding companies
• Heightened capital requirements for interstate acquisitions
• New restrictions on insider asset sales and lending
• Truth in Lending Act exemption threshold for certain credit transactions and consumer leases is increased from $25,000 to $50,000 (i.e., TILA coverage is increased)
• Repeal of Regulation Q and the underlying statute (permitting payment of interest on demand deposit accounts)
• Increase in next-day availability requirement for deposit items not themselves subject to next-day availability under the Expedited Funds Availability Act from first $100 to first $200
• Required credit score disclosure under the Fair Credit Reporting Act where adverse action is based in whole or part on a consumer report

We will continue to follow rulemaking and enforcement of the Act and provide updates linked to our dedicated Dodd-Frank page.  Regulators (and Barney Frank) are celebrating the law’s milestone today by testifying before the U.S. Senate on how the Act has improved supervision.  Stay tuned.