On August 2, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency provided further evidence that change may be forthcoming for banks subject to the Volcker Rule (Section 13 of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956) by issuing a notice soliciting suggestions and recommendations for revising the regulations implementing the Volcker Rule to better accomplish the purposes of the statute. All aspects of the implementing regulations are open for discussion, but the notice includes specific questions relating to 1) the scope of entities subject to the regulations; 2) the proprietary trading prohibition; 3) the covered funds prohibition; and 4) compliance programs and metrics reporting requirements.

 No changes in the implementing regulations can be made without the concurrence of the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. With respect to the notice, Acting Comptroller of the Currency Keith Noreika said, “I look forward to reviewing the comments and to joining the other regulators soon on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to amend the regulation.”

 The notice requests commenters to respond no later than 45 days after publication of the notice in the Federal Register.

 The notice is available here.