WASHINGTON — With more than 120 comment letters received, the Securities and Exchange Commission recently said it's ready to move forward on approving a regulation that will extend broker-dealer exemptions to banks by July 2.

At issue is the former Regulation B proposed in spring 2004, now titled Regulation R, which allowed credit unions to enter into the same networking arrangements with broker-dealers that banks can, sweep deposit accounts into no-load money market funds under the same terms as banks and to buy and sell securities for investment purposes for themselves, or for accounts for which they act as trustee or fiduciary.

The Financial Services Regulatory Relief Act of 2006 enacted in late 2006 required the SEC to work with the Fed to jointly issue another proposal to clarify these exceptions. This provision of Reg Relief extended these exceptions to thrifts, but not to credit unions.