WASHINGTON – The House of Representatives passed five bipartisan bills from the Financial Services Committee this week, all of which passed the Committee with unanimous support.

“I’m glad to see these important Financial Services Committee bills pass the House. These bills will ease regulatory burdens, making it easier for Americans to access mobile banking services, allowing non-profits like Habitat for Humanity to continue serving their community, and ensuring small businesses are able to access the capital they need to grow and expand their business and create jobs,” said Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX).

H.R. 1457, the Making Online Banking Initiation Legal and Easy (MOBILE) Act, sponsored by Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO), would authorize a financial institution, upon an individual’s request, to record personal information from a scan, copy, or image of such individual’s driver’s license or personal identification card and store the information electronically for the purpose of verifying the identity of a customer and preventing fraud or criminal activity, and requires the financial institution to delete the image after using it for the permitted purpose.

This bill passed 397-8.

H.R. 1426, the Federal Savings Association Charter Flexibility Act of 2017, sponsored by Rep. Keith Rothfus (R-PA), would amend the Home Owners’ Loan Act to allow certain federal savings associations to operate with the same rights and privileges as a national banks supervised by the Office of the Comptroller Currency. H.R. 1426 is Section 551 of H.R. 10, the Financial CHOICE Act of 2017.

This bill passed by voice vote.

Title 1 of H.R. 2255, the Housing Opportunities Made Easier (HOME) Act by Rep. David Trott (R-MI), would amend the Truth in Lending Act to allow mortgage appraisal services to be donated by a fee appraiser to an organization that is eligible to receive tax-deductible charitable contributions. 

Title 2 would amend the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to require the SEC’s Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation to identify any unique challenges that rural-area small businesses have in securing capital and to include a summary of such issues in the Advocate’s annual report to Congress.

Lastly, Title 3 would exempt financial institutions and some of their employees from liability in any civil or administrative proceeding in situations where those employees make a report about the potential exploitation of a senior citizen to a governmental agency so long as the entity has provided training and the report is made in good faith.

This bill passed by voice vote.

H.R. 4292, the Financial Institution Living Will Improvement Act of 2017, sponsored by Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), would amend the “Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act” to reform the resolution plan submission “living will” process by requiring bank holding companies to submit to the Federal Reserve Board (Federal Reserve) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) resolution plans every two years. This bill requires the Federal Reserve and FDIC to provide feedback regarding a resolution plan within six months after a bank holding company submission. This bill would also require the Federal Reserve and FDIC to publicly disclose the assessment framework used to review the adequacy of resolution plans.

This bill passed 414-0.

H.R. 4792, the Small Business Access to Capital After a Natural Disaster, sponsored by Rep. Nydia Velazquez (R-NY), would amend the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to have the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation identify any unique challenges to small businesses in areas affected by hurricanes or other natural disasters when identifying problems that small businesses have with securing access to capital.

This bill passed by voice vote. 

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