Curry confirmed Comptroller of the Currency.Thomas Curry, who served as the Commissioner of Banks for Massachusetts during most of the 1990s, was confirmed Comptroller of the Currency by the U.S. Senate. His first day on the job was scheduled to be April 8. Curry has served on the FDIC board since 2004 and as Comptroller he will remain on that board. Curry was nominated to be Comptroller last June. He succeeds John Dugan, whose term concluded last August. Since then, John Walsh has been serving as Acting Comptroller..Senate fills FDIC board but not the chairmanship.The Senate also confirmed three other people to FDIC board seats: Martin Gruenberg, Thomas Hoenig and Jeremiah Norton. For the first time in the FDIC's 80-year-history, however, the agency's board has all five seats filled without a confirmed chairman. (CFPB Director Richard Cordray is the other board member, in addition to Curry.) The White House had nominated Gruenberg, a Democrat, to be FDIC chairman, and Hoenig, a Republican, to be vice chairman. Gruenberg was confirmed as vice-chairman, who runs the FDIC as acting chairman in the absence of a confirmed chairman. Republicans didn't want to confirm Gruenberg's chairmanship because the term would run through 2017 and they are hopeful that if a Republican beats President Obama this fall, they will have an opportunity to name a Republican to run the FDIC. Democrats didn't want to name Hoenig vice chairman because then he would run the agency should no chairman be confirmed..JOBS Act makes life easier for community banks.Congress has passed the JOBS Act, which makes it easier for community banks to raise capital and reduces regulatory burden. The Act increases the shareholder threshold for SEC registration to 2,000 shareholders from 500. In addition, the threshold for deregistration is increased to 1,200 shareholders from 300. If a bank is newly public and smaller than $1 billion it can belong to a new category of companies called "emerging growth companies." Such companies are not required to pay independent auditors to review their procedures. The Act also creates a new securities registration known as "crowd-funding." Banks can sell up to $1 million worth of securities to non-accredited investors as long as no individual investor invests more than a certain amount of their income..Earnings grew at a majority of ag banks.Over 95 percent of farm banks were profitable in 2011, with 65 percent reporting an increase in earnings, according the American Bankers Association's 2011 Farm Bank Performance Report. The agricultural sector continues to outperform the broader national economy. As a result, agricultural banks extended more than $129.9 billion in farm loans and saw deposits increase by $303.6 billion in 2011. Agricultural banks also saw a good return on their assets. A quarter of all farm banks had an ROA in excess of 1.12 percent in 2011. The median return on average assets for farm banks rose to 0.86 percent in 2011 from 0.80 percent in 2010. The Department of Agriculture is forecasting that net farm cash income will set a record at almost $110 billion on the strength of high commodity prices and good harvest, 19 percent above the prior record attained in 2010.
