The SEC announced (pursuant to Section 107(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act) that on August 28, 2012, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) filed with the SEC the proposed rules described in items I and II below, which items have been prepared by the PCAOB. The SEC is publishing this notice to solicit comments on the proposed rules from interested persons. Comments Due: October 9, 2012 Cross-Reference(s): Dodd-Frank Section 982 (Oversight of brokers and dealers). View release here (links externally to Federal Register website).

The Dodd-Frank Act created the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) to identify and address threats to the stability of the U.S. financial system and Office of Financial Research (OFR) to support FSOC and Congress by providing financial research and data. In this report, the GAO was asked to examine (1) any challenges FSOC and OFR face in fulfilling their missions (2) FSOC and OFR's efforts to establish management structures and mechanisms to carry out their missions, (3) FSOC and OFR's activities for supporting collaboration among their members and external stakeholders, and (4) the

The SEC announced "first-of-its-kind" charges against the New York Stock Exchange for compliance failures that gave certain customers an "improper head start" on trading information ahead of ordinary public customers. According to the SEC's order against NYSE, the exchange violated SEC Regulation NMS over an extended period of time beginning in 2008. The NYSE allegedly sent data through two of its proprietary feeds before sending data to the consolidated feeds, and failed to monitor the speed of its proprietary feeds compared to its data transmission to the consolidated feeds. Lofchie Comment

ICE Clear U.S. announced the following deadlines: November 8 - ICE Clear U.S. will be required by the CFTC to collect gross customer margins (GCM) from its clearing members. November 3 - ICE Clear U.S. will implement system upgrades to accommodate the submission of GCM files. To ensure that clearing members can comply with this new CFTC requirement, ICE Clear U.S. will support a production parallel test of GCM file submissions. Testing will being on on September 24 and continue until November 2. View notice in full here (links externally to ICE website).

This report examines (1) the significant changes community banks and credit unions have undergone in the past decade and the factors that have contributed to such changes, and (2) Dodd-Frank Act provisions that regulators, industry associations, and others expect to impact community banks and credit unions, including their small business lending. GAO analyzed regulatory and other data on community banks and credit unions; reviewed academic and other relevant studies; and interviewed federal regulators, community banks, credit unions, state regulatory and industry associations, academics, and