Compliance Alliance Question of the Week

Question:
Do loans made to executive officers have to be preapproved by the board?
 
Answer:
No, unless the general requirement to get preapproval applies (which generally includes extensions over $500,000), the loan must be reported to the board but does not require preapproval. This is because the general prohibitions on insiders (§215.4), including the preapproval provision, and the more specific executive officer provisions (§ 215.5) are related, yet distinct.
 
What this means is that the executive officer may very well need to gain preapproval from the board, but not automatically just because she or he is an executive officer. This being said, the executive officer will need to report the extension to the board in all cases.
 
(b) Prior approval. (1) No member bank may extend credit (which term includes granting a line of credit) to any insider of the bank or insider of its affiliates in an amount that, when aggregated with the amount of all other extensions of credit to that person and to all related interests of that person, exceeds the higher of $25,000 or 5 percent of the member bank's unimpaired capital and unimpaired surplus, unless: (i) The extension of credit has been approved in advance by a majority of the entire board of directors of that bank; and (ii) The interested party has abstained from participating directly or indirectly in the voting.
 
12 CFR § 215.4(b)(1): https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=e05fffd3223a689ff17a3e90755f0aa2&mc=true&node=se12.2.215_14&rgn=div8
(d) Any extension of credit by a member bank to any of its executive officers shall be:
(1) Promptly reported to the member bank's board of directors;
 
12 CFR § 215.5(d)(1): https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=e05fffd3223a689ff17a3e90755f0aa2&mc=true&node=se12.2.215_15&rgn=div8