The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) at the end of October published a fact sheet to clarify the eligibility of wind tax equity investments as public welfare investments for national banks and federal savings associations (federal thrifts). Qualifying as such permits the investment to be held in the bank, rather than a bank holding company. Further, it qualifies the investment for favorable capital weighting under Basel III and qualifies the investment for exceptions to the Volker and Dodd-Frank and real estate limitation rules.
The OCC’s fact sheet is available here.