Item 1A. Risk Factors
Item 1A. Risk Factors
A description of our risk factors can be found in "Item 1A. Risk Factors" included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2020. There were no material changes to those risk factors during the nine months ended June 30, 2021, except that the following risk factors are hereby added:
We will be subject to heightened regulatory requirements if our total assets grow in excess of $10 billion as of December 31 of any calendar year.
As of June 30, 2021, our total assets were $7.05 billion. While we intend to remain under the $10 billion asset level, our total assets could exceed $10 billion at the end of this calendar year. Our total assets increased substantially during certain periods of fiscal 2020 and fiscal 2021 as a result of our distribution of prepaid debit cards as part of the EIP program and deposits our prepaid partners received related to the EIP program. Although we did not expect the EIP program deposits to expand our total assets beyond $10 billion, these deposits, in combination with Child Tax Credit (CTC) deposits, could result in such an increase. In addition to our current regulatory requirements, banks with $10 billion or more in total assets are, among other things: examined directly by the CFPB with respect to various federal consumer financial laws; subject to reduced dividends on the Bank’s holdings of Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis common stock; subject to limits on interchange fees pursuant to the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act; subject to certain enhanced prudential standards; no longer treated as a “small institution” for FDIC deposit insurance assessment purposes; and no longer eligible to elect to be subject to the Community Bank Leverage ratio. Compliance with these additional ongoing requirements may necessitate additional personnel, the design and implementation of additional internal controls, or the incurrence of other significant expenses, any of which could have a significant adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. Our regulators may also consider our preparation for compliance with these regulatory requirements in the course of examining our operations generally or when considering any request from us or the Bank.
We will become subject to reduced interchange income and could face related adverse business consequences if our total assets grow in excess of $10 billion as of December 31 of any calendar year.
Debit card interchange fee restrictions set forth in Section 1075 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which is known as the Durbin Amendment, as implemented by regulations of the Federal Reserve, cap the maximum debit interchange fee that a debit card issuer may receive per transaction. Debit card issuers with total consolidated assets of less than $10 billion are exempt from these interchange fee restrictions. The exemption for small issuers ceases to apply as of July 1 of the year following the calendar year in which the debit card issuer has total consolidated assets of $10 billion or more at calendar year-end. Our total assets increased substantially during certain periods of fiscal 2020 and fiscal 2021 as a result of our distribution of prepaid debit cards as part of the EIP program and deposits our prepaid partners received related to the EIP program. Although we do not expect the EIP program deposits to expand our total assets beyond $10 billion at calendar year end, these deposits, in combination with CTC deposits, could result in such an increase. Any reduction in interchange income as a result of the loss of the exemption for small issuers under the Durbin Amendment could have a significant adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Moreover, our loss of eligibility under the exemption for small issuers could adversely affect or reduce our ability to maintain certain of our fee-sharing prepaid card partnerships, which have the right to terminate our agreement with respect to certain financial services under such circumstances. See risk factor “We are dependent upon relationships with various third parties with respect to our operations, and our ability to maintain such relationships and the ability of such third parties to perform in accordance with the applicable agreements, could adversely affect our business” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2020.
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