Sen. Phil Gramm, chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, made the following statement on proposed legislation to change the financial privacy provisions of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which was signed into law just six months ago:

"Late last year, Congress approved the most important protections of financial privacy in U.S. history. For the first time, customers have the legal right to know what the privacy policies are at their banks and stock brokers. And customers have the right to tell their banks and brokers not to share their personal information with outside groups.

"The rules to put those protections in place are still being written by regulators. We need to give customers and their financial institutions time to absorb those new rules before we consider changing them."

Requires clear disclosure by all financial institutions of their privacy policy regarding the sharing of non-public personal information with both affiliates and third parties.

Requires a notice to consumers and an opportunity to "opt-out" of sharing of non-public personal information with nonaffiliated third parties subject to certain limited exceptions.

Clarifies that the disclosure of a financial institution's privacy policy is required to take place at the time of establishing a customer relationship with a consumer and not less than annually during the continuation of such relationship.

Provides for a separate rather than joint rulemaking to carry out the purposes of the subtitle; the relevant agencies are directed, however, to consult and coordinate with one another for purposes of assuring to the maximum extent possible that the regulations that each prescribes are consistent and comparable with those prescribed by the other agencies.

Clarifies that nothing in this title is intended to modify, limit, or supersede the operation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Extends the time period for completion of a study on financial institutions' information- sharing practices from 6 to 18 months from date of enactment.

Requires that rules for the disclosure of institutions' privacy policies must be issued by regulators within 6 months of the date of enactment. The rules will become effective 6 months after they are required to be prescribed unless the regulators specify a later date.

Assigns authority for enforcing the subtitle's provisions to the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal banking agencies, the National Credit Union Administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to their respective jurisdictions, and provides for enforcement of the subtitle by the States.