Definitions.

Checkout our iOS App for a better way to browser and research.

In this chapter, unless the context otherwise requires,

(1) “automated teller machine,” means a staffed or unstaffed electronic device or terminal that permits a bank customer to accomplish various financial transactions, including depositing or withdrawing funds, making loans, and transferring funds between accounts, and includes a similar device or facility known or referred to by another name or designation, including customer-bank communication terminal, electronic fund transfer device, or 24-hour teller, but does not include a machine that is operated by more than one bank;

(2) “bank” means a person doing a banking business, including persons subject to the law of this or another jurisdiction;

(3) “banking” means performing activities that

(A) include, at a minimum, soliciting, receiving, or accepting money or its equivalent on deposit, whether the deposit is made subject to a check or is evidenced by a certificate of deposit, passbook, note, receipt, or other writing; in this subparagraph, “deposit” does not include a deposit made by an agent for a principal; and

(B) may also include the negotiation for and discounting of promissory notes or other evidences of indebtedness, selling and buying money or its equivalent, lending money on personal or real property or other security, or performing other similar financial operations;

(4) “branch bank” includes an office, agency, or other place of business located in the state and at which deposits are received, checks are paid, or money is lent, but does not include either the principal office of a bank or an automated teller machine;

(5) “capital” means the amount of outstanding common stock plus outstanding and perpetual preferred stock;

(6) “capital accounts” includes capital, surplus, undivided profits, and capital notes and debentures not maturing within one year from the date of the loan;

(7) “commissioner” means the commissioner of commerce, community, and economic development or a designee of the commissioner;

(8) “community” means a city, town, unincorporated village, or, in the absence of one of the foregoing, a trade area;

(9) “department” means the Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development;

(10) “depository institution” means a financial institution whose deposits are insured by an agency of the federal government; in this paragraph, “financial institution” includes institutions from outside the state that are not subject to the regulation of the department under this title;

(11) “domestic bank holding company” means a corporation that maintains its principal office and place of business in the state and that has control over a bank or another domestic bank holding company in one of the following ways:

(A) the corporation directly or indirectly or acting through one or more other persons owns, controls, or has power to vote 25 percent or more of a class of voting securities of the bank or holding company;

(B) the corporation controls in any manner the election of a majority of the directors or trustees of the bank or holding company; or

(C) the department determines, after notice and opportunity for hearing, that the corporation directly or indirectly exercises a controlling influence over the management of the policies of the bank or holding company;

(12) “extension of credit” means a negotiable instrument, and includes promissory notes, acknowledgments of advance, due bills, invoices, overdrafts, acceptances, and similar written or oral obligations or evidence of debt whether secured or unsecured; in this paragraph, “negotiable instrument” has the meaning given in AS 45.03.104;

(13) “fiduciary” means a trustee, agent, executor, administrator, committee, guardian or conservator for a minor or other incompetent person, a receiver, a trustee in bankruptcy, an assignee for creditors, or the holder of a similar position of trust;

(14) “financial holding company” means an existing, or newly formed, domestic bank holding company that has been approved as a financial holding company by the Federal Reserve System and not denied that status by the department under AS 06.05.237;

(15) “financial institution” means an institution subject to the regulation of the department under this title; in this paragraph, “institution” includes a commercial bank, savings bank, credit union, premium finance company, small loan company, bank holding company, financial holding company, trust company, and savings and loan association;

(16) “good faith” means honesty in fact in the transaction and a reasonable ground for belief that the transaction is lawful, proper, or authorized;

(17) “impaired capital” or “impairment of capital” means that the value of the bank's assets is less than the bank's liabilities plus 120 percent of the amount of the bank's paid-in capital;

(18) “insolvent” means

(A) bank assets having a value less than the bank's liabilities, other than liability on account of capital stock, capital notes, and debentures;

(B) failure to increase total adjusted capital accounts or reserves after being ordered to do so under AS 06.05.305(c); or

(C) inability to meet obligations or demands as they become due in the ordinary course of business;

(19) “international bank” means a corporation, partnership, or association that is organized and operates under the laws of a country other than the United States and that is authorized by its license or charter to carry on a banking business;

(20) “interstate national bank” means a national bank whose principal office, as designated in its articles of incorporation, is not located in this state;

(21) “interstate state bank” means a person organized under the laws of another state and holding a charter, license, or certificate of authority from another state to engage in a banking business;

(22) “loan” includes an extension of credit resulting from direct or indirect negotiations between a lender and a debtor;

(23) “national bank” means a bank chartered by the United States;

(24) “out-of-state bank holding company” means a company that

(A) is a bank holding company as defined in 12 U.S.C. 1841 (Bank Holding Company Act); is registered as a bank holding company with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, with the federal reserve bank of the Federal Reserve District in which the operations of the bank holding company are principally conducted, or with a Federal Reserve Bank that the Board of Governors may designate; maintains its principal office and place of business outside the state; and principally conducts its operations out of the state, as measured by total deposits held or controlled by it on the date on which it becomes an out-of-state bank holding company; or

(B) a corporation, partnership, or association organized and operating under the laws of a country other than the United States;

(25) “recently formed bank” means a state bank or national bank that conducts a banking business in the state and that commenced the banking business in the state on or after July 1, 1982, and that has not been in existence and continuously operating in the state for a period of three years or more; “recently formed bank” does not include

(A) a bank organized solely for the purpose of facilitating acquisition of a bank that either has been in existence and continuously operating in the state as a bank for a three-year period, or was conducting a banking business in the state on or before June 30, 1982;

(B) a state bank that the department determines was not created directly or indirectly by an acquiring interstate state bank, interstate national bank, international bank, or out-of-state bank holding company, and that does not have the capacity to continue to conduct its business independently in a manner consistent with the public interest and the interest of depositors, creditors, and shareholders; or

(C) a national bank that the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System, or their designee, determines is not chartered directly or indirectly by an acquiring out-of-state bank holding company, and that does not have the capacity to conduct its business independently in a manner consistent with the public interest of depositors, creditors, and shareholders;

(26) “state bank” means a bank organized under this chapter;

(27) “state financial institution” means a financial institution that is organized under this title or that is subject to examination by the department under this title;

(28) “subsidiary” means a corporation in which a bank owns more than 50 percent of the voting power of the corporation either directly or indirectly through one or more other subsidiaries of the bank;

(29) “surplus” includes amounts paid in for stock in excess of the par value of the stock, which are generally called capital surplus or paid-in surplus, plus any amounts transferred to the account from undivided profits, which are generally called earned surplus;

(30) “undivided profits” means the accumulated, undistributed net profit of a bank, including any residue after

(A) provision for payment of taxes and expenses of operations;

(B) transfers to reserves allocated to a particular asset or class of assets;

(C) losses estimated or sustained on a particular asset or class of assets in excess of the amount of reserves allocated for the asset;

(D) transfers to surplus and capital; and

(E) amounts declared as dividends to shareholders;

(31) “unsafe or unsound condition,” with respect to a bank, means insolvency; impairment of capital; operating in violation of law, order of the department, or its articles or bylaws; having less than the statutory or regulatory requirements for capital, surplus, or reserves; or another condition that the department determines threatens the safety of depositors or the soundness of the state banking system.


Download our app to see the most-to-date content.