The MSRB published an introductory guide to EMMA for state and local government issuers of municipal bonds. The guide is intended to assist state and local governments in better evaluating their municipal financing options, communicate with investors, and comply with disclosure rules. It is a key addition to the MSRB's State and Local Government Toolkit, which includes Costs Associated with Issuing Municipal Securities and Using EMMA Trade Monitor to Evaluate Your Municipal Market Activity. View Guide in full here (links externally to MSRB website). See: Electronic Municipal Market Access

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ("CFPB") is providing guidance clarifying and making technical amendments to the 2013 Escrows Final Rule. The final rule, among other things, lengthens the amount of time during which a mandatory escrow account established for a higher-priced mortgage loan ("HPML") must be maintained. The rule also establishes an exemption from the escrow requirement for certain creditors that operate predominantly in "rural" or "underserved" areas. The amendments clarify the determination method for the "rural" and "underserved" designations and keep in place certain

The Federal Reserve Board ("Board") and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ("FDIC") have jointly issued the release of additional guidance, clarification and direction for the first group of institutions that filed their resolution plans pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Act. These 11 institutions filed their initial resolution plans with the Federal Reserve Board and the FDIC in 2012. Plans were required generally from U.S. bank holding companies with $250 billion or more in total nonbank assets, and foreign-based bank holding companies with $250 billion or more in total U.S. nonbank assets

The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs held a hearing discussing the role of independent consultants in the enforcement process of various regulators. The Committee heard testimony from, among others, Daniel P. Stipano, Deputy Chief Counsel at the OCC, and Richard Ashton, Deputy General Counsel at the Federal Reserve. Stipano reviewed the OCC's authority to require the use of independent consultants, the circumstances in which the OCC has ordered banks to engage independent consultants, the OCC's oversight of such independent consultants, significant results of the use of

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew testified at a hearing held by the House Ways and Means Committee discussing the President's Fiscal Year 2014 Budget. In his oral testimony, Secretary Lew reiterated the U.S. government's opposition to a tax on financial transactions recently proposed by the European Union. Secretary Lew stated that such a tax would be "very troubling" in that it would apply on a cross-border basis, adding that from the perspective of the United States, it would be unacceptable policy for other countries to create a tax with extraterritorial reach by levying a tax on transactions