National News

GAO makes recommendations for implementing Dodd-Frank Act rules.The General Accountability Office says the bank regulatory agencies should work together more in their effort to implement rules mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act. The GAO looked at how the banking agencies are working together and found room for improvement. GAO recommends that the Financial Stability Oversight Council develop written protocols for interagency coordination. It also recommends that regulators identify what data will be needed to assess the impact of new rules written as a result of the Dodd-Frank Act. GAO said FSOC should require its Office of Financial Research to work with regulators to identify and begin collecting data needed for further analysis. Regulators and FSOC generally agreed with the GAO report's findings but most neither agreed nor disagreed with its recommendations. .CFPB announces early warning notice process.The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced Nov. 7 that it will warn potential subjects of investigation before taking legal action. Once the CFPB has indications that a consumer protection law has been broken, it will initiate an "early warning notice" process. The Office of Enforcement will contact the institution under investigation with evidence that has been gathered. The firm under investigation will have 14 days to submit any relevant legal, policy arguments and facts. The CFPB said this process is not required by law but rather is meant to strike, "a balance between the goal of fairness to those being investigated and our mission to protect consumers," said Raj Date, special advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury for the CFPB. .Midwest's agricultural economy growing.The Rural Mainstreet Index rose in October above 50.0 for a second straight month, indicating that the rural agriculturally-dependent areas of the region are growing, but at a very slow rate, according to the latest survey of bank CEOs in a 10-state region. "Survey results over the past several months, similar to national surveys, indicate that the economy is growing but at an anemic pace. However, companies linked to agriculture continue to experience healthy growth," said Creighton University economist Ernie Goss. The survey asked bankers to project 2012 cash rents for farmland. On average, an 8.2 percent gain is expected for 2012. Approximately 18 percent of the bankers expect cash rents to grow by more than 16 percent. One in 10 bankers expect growth to range between 11 percent and 15 percent while one-third of the bank CEOs anticipate that cash rents will advance between 6 percent and 10 percent next year. Approximately 39 percent expect growth in cash rents to be less than 6 percent. .Omaha bank closed.The Nebraska Department of Banking and Finance closed Mid City Bank, Inc., Omaha, on Nov. 4. In a transaction facilitated by the FDIC, Purdum State Bank, Purdum, Neb., acquired essentially all of the failed bank's $106.1 million in assets including five offices, and $105.5 million in deposits. With the acquisition, Purdum State Bank changed its name to Premier Bank. There was no loss-share agreement between the bank and the FDIC in this transaction. The FDIC estimates the cost of the failure to the DIF to be $12.7 million. Mid City Bank was the 86th bank failure this year and the first in Nebraska.