The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (the “FDIC”) has published a request for information in the Federal Register (the “RFI”) seeking comment on approaches it uses, or is considering using, to analyze the effects of its regulatory actions and rulemaking. Among other things, the FDIC seeks to improve the quality of its analysis by incorporating the following in its rulemaking: (i) a statement of the need for the proposed action; (ii) an identification of a baseline against which the effects of the action are compared; (iii) an identification of alternative regulatory approaches; and (iv) an evaluation of the benefits and costs from all major stakeholder perspectives, including qualitative discussion and quantitative analysis where appropriate and relevant), of the proposed action and the main alternatives identified by the analysis.

With this in mind, the FDIC has asked for comment on all aspects of the RFI and the FDIC’s regulatory analysis, including examples of analytical approaches or sources of data or other information that may assist it in analyzing specific rules or classes of rules. Topics of particular interest include:

• Appropriate concepts for identifying the broad economic benefits and costs of changes in bank regulation;
• Effects of changes in regulations on bank safety and soundness;
• Effects of changes in regulations on the incidence of consumer harm;
• Effects of changes in regulations on the achievement of the FDIC’s statutory objectives regarding failure resolution or the deposit insurance system;
• Ways to achieve statutory mandates in the most efficient and effective manner;
• Approaches to anticipating potential unintended consequences of regulatory changes;
• Effects of changes in regulations on the cost and availability of bank credit or other financial services;
• Effects of changes in regulations on the direct and indirect costs banks incur to comply with these regulations;
• How to evaluate the effects of changes in banks’ compliance responsibilities on the achievement of statutory objectives regarding safety and soundness, consumer protection or other matters;
• Effects of changes in the cost and availability of bank financial services on U.S. economic output;
• Effects of changes in bank regulation on the frequency or severity of bank failures or banking crises, and consequent effects on U.S. economic output;
• Distributional effects of changes in bank regulation; and
• The format and presentation of regulatory analysis.

Comments must be received on or before January 28, 2020.