Alex here.

This is Lex Reg Pulse Daily for Saturday, July 11, 2026.

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law overnight — not by presidential signature, but by the expiration of the signing window at midnight Friday.

The banking provisions are now operative.

For community lenders, that means three things are live today that were only staged yesterday.

First, the custodial-deposit carve-out and modified reciprocal-deposit treatment.

Banks under ten billion dollars in assets can now book against those exceptions.

Deposit-operations teams that built acceptance policies in anticipation can activate them.

The practical effect: smaller institutions gain a stronger footing competing for large corporate and municipal balances — a market where the largest banks have held a structural advantage.

That matters now because tokenized deposits and stablecoin rails are beginning to compete for the same corporate treasury balances.

Second, exam-cycle relief.

Institutions up to six billion dollars in assets qualify for an extended 18-month examination cycle, reducing recurring supervisory burden across a broad swath of community and regional banks.

Boards should confirm their asset thresholds and coordinate with their primary federal regulator on timing.

On sanctions: Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Ali Ansari, a Dubai-based financier, on July 10.

The designation covers Ansari, his holding company Smart Global Limited, and three Iranian exchange houses — the Darbani, Lavasani, and Khandan partnerships — accused of moving foreign currency for more than a dozen sanctioned Iranian banks including Bank Melli and Bank Saderat.

Blocking obligations attach immediately.

The 10-business-day window is the deadline for filing blocking reports, not for completing the underlying review.

Correspondent banking, trade finance, and payments desks with counterparty exposure in Germany, Luxembourg, Spain, the United Kingdom, Cyprus, or the UAE should reconcile the identified shell structures against open relationships now.

The OCC closed Kentland Federal Savings and Loan Association of Kentland, Indiana on July 10, naming the FDIC as receiver.

At three-point-seven-three million dollars in assets, it was the smallest standalone bank in the country.

The OCC cited unsafe and unsound practices, capital depletion, and no reasonable prospect of recovery.

Kentland Bank — an unaffiliated institution — assumed all three-point-six-five million dollars in deposits, and the branch reopens Monday, July 13.

The FDIC estimates a one-point-two million dollar cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund.

Prompt corrective action applies at every asset size.

Circle received final OCC approval for a national trust charter on Friday, extending the supervised-issuer template that competitors — including Sony Bank's Connectia Trust — are being pushed toward.

The SEC's Office of Municipal Securities also revised its registration guidance effective July 10, clarifying that public-private-partnership advisory activity can trigger municipal advisor registration, that remote work locations conducting that business must be disclosed as offices on Forms MA and MA-I, and that recordkeeping obligations extend to pricing advice.

Banks with municipal advisory units should confirm registration status against the updated guidance.

Two developments worth flagging for the week ahead.

The UK government placed Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle under direct supervision by the Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority — shifting cloud-concentration risk from bank-managed vendor oversight to direct regulatory supervision of those providers.

US regulators have not adopted that model, but banks running business-critical functions on these platforms should inventory dependencies now; a comparable US framework would arrive as enhanced vendor-audit and regulatory-access obligations.

Separately, Custodia Bank has asked the Supreme Court to review the Federal Reserve's denial of its master account, keeping alive a challenge to the central bank's discretion over payment-system access — a question with direct stakes for uninsured and novel-charter applicants seeking Fed connectivity.

Looking at the week ahead: the Federal Reserve's Monetary Policy Report, released Friday, cites tariff-driven inflation pressure ahead of Chair Kevin Warsh's July 15 testimony.

House and Senate committees hold the first CFPB hearings under Acting Director Russell Vought that same week — the clearest read yet on which inherited rules the Bureau intends to reopen, including the credit card late-fee regulation.

Bank earnings begin July 14 with JPMorgan leading.

Net interest income trajectory and any tariff-linked reserve builds on commercial and small-business books are the numbers to watch.

Two calendar items: comments on the NCUA's Federal Financial Assistance regulation close July 13.

Comments on the OCC's stablecoin anti-money-laundering and sanctions compliance framework close July 24.

For the full analysis, check your Lex Reg Pulse daily briefing in your inbox, or catch Lex Reg Pulse Weekly every Sunday.

I'm Alex.

This has been Lex Reg Pulse Daily.

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