The Federal Reserve Board has approved final amendments to Regulation D (Reserve Requirements of Depository Institutions) to liberalize the types of transfers consumers can make from savings deposits and to make it easier for community banks that use correspondent banks to receive interest on excess balances held at Federal Reserve Banks.

The amendments would also ensure that correspondents that are not eligible to receive interest on their own balances at Reserve Banks pass back to their respondents any interest earned on required reserve balances held on behalf of those respondents. The Board is also making other clarifying changes to Regulation D and Regulation I (Issue and Cancellation of Federal Reserve Bank Capital Stock).

The Board has revised Regulation D's restrictions on the types and number of transfers and withdrawals that may be made from savings deposits. The final amendments increase from three to six the permissible monthly number of transfers or withdrawals from savings deposits by check, debit card, or similar order payable to third parties.

The Board also approved final amendments to Regulation D to authorize the establishment of excess balance accounts at Federal Reserve Banks. Excess balance accounts are limited-purpose accounts for maintaining excess balances of one or more institutions that are eligible to earn interest on their Federal Reserve balances. In October 2008, the Board adopted an interim final rule amending Regulation D that directed Federal Reserve Banks to pay interest on balances held by eligible institutions in accounts at Reserve Banks. The final rule revises those provisions as they apply to balances of respondents maintained by "ineligible" pass-through correspondents—that is, entities such as nondepository institutions that serve as correspondents but are not eligible to receive interest on the balances they maintain on their own behalf at the Federal Reserve. Specifically, the final rule provides that only required reserve balances maintained in an ineligible correspondent's account on behalf of its respondents will receive interest. 

Press release 

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