Loans to Executive Officers, Directors, and Principal Shareholders of Member Banks; Loans to Holding Companies and Affiliates

The Board is amending its Regulation O, which limits how much and on what terms a bank may lend to its own insiders and insiders of its affiliates, in order to permit insiders of a bank and of the bank's affiliates to obtain loans under company-wide employee benefit plans. This amendment conforms the regulation to the Economic Growth and Regulatory Paperwork Reduction Act of 1996, which was recently passed by Congress. Currently, participation in such plans is prohibited when loans under such plans are on terms not available to the general public. The Board also is amending Regulation O to simplify the procedure for a bank's board of directors to exclude executive officers and directors of an affiliate from policymaking functions of the bank, and thereby from the restrictions of Regulation O.