The House Financial Services Committee has approved a number of banking bills of note over the past week. These include:

• The Bank Competition Modernization Act (H.R. 5262). The bill would amend the Federal Deposit Insurance Act, the Bank Holding Company Act and the Home Owners’ Loan Act to stipulate that mergers resulting in institutions under $10 billion in assets are presumed not to result in a monopoly, lessen competition or restrain trade. In addition, the $10 billion asset threshold in the legislation would be periodically adjusted by indexing to the nominal gross domestic product.
• The Stress Testing Accountability and Transparency Act (H.R. 5270). The bill would require the Federal Reserve to issue a rule to establish models, assumptions, formulas or other decisional methodologies that are used to determine any component or subcomponent of the stress capital buffer for a bank holding company. It would also prohibit the Fed from making material changes to the calculation without a notice-and-comment rulemaking.
• The Community Bank Leverage Improvement and Flexibility for Transparency (LIFT) Act (H.R. 5276). The bill would adjust the community bank leverage ratio (CBLR) to not less than 6% and not more than 8%, and it would increase the threshold under which banks are eligible to opt into the CBLR framework to $15 billion in total assets, compared to the current threshold of $10 billion in total assets.
• The Merchant Banking Modernization Act (H.R. 5291). The bill would amend the Bank Holding Company Act by requiring the Fed to permit merchant banking investments to be held for at least 15 years from the date of initial investment.