No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section states congressional findings on the CAMELS rating system (i.e., Capital adequacy, Asset quality, Management, Earnings, Liquidity, and Sensitivity to market risk) for evaluating financial institutions' safety and soundness—including its use in mergers, acquisitions, and deposit insurance premiums—and declares that (1) the system relies heavily on subjective examiner judgment, leading to inconsistent ratings; (2) objective measures and weighting for components will promote fairness, consistency, and accountability; and (3) supervision should focus on a financial institution's core financial condition or solvency.
This section amends the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council Act of 1978 to require the Council to recommend changes to the Uniform Financial Institutions Rating System—commonly known as the CAMELS rating system, which evaluates supervised financial institutions on capital adequacy (C), asset quality (A), management (M), earnings (E), liquidity (L), and sensitivity to market risk (S)—specifically to (1) establish clear and objective criteria for each CAMELS component; (2) revise factors affecting each component for a composite rating that more accurately reflects financial condition and risk profile; (3) either eliminate the management component or limit it to objective measures of governance and controls managing risk profile; (4) ensure composite ratings consider compliance with recordkeeping and anti-money laundering laws (i.e., Federal Deposit Insurance Act §21 (12 U.S.C. 1829b), Bank Secrecy Act (§§101-102 (12 U.S.C. 1951 et seq.)), 31 U.S.C. §§5311 et seq., and related regulations); and (5) base composite ratings on a transparent methodology limited to objective criteria. Within 12 months after the Council's recommendations, federal financial institutions regulatory agencies must jointly issue rules implementing them following a notice of proposed rulemaking and at least 90-day public comment period. The amendments include a rule of construction preserving agencies' supervisory and enforcement authorities for financial institution safety and soundness. Separately, this section revises the "well managed" definition under the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 (12 U.S.C. 1841(o)(9)(A)) to base it solely on achievement of a CAMEL rating (previously included additional criteria under clause (ii)).