Financial Services Entities Earn Reprieve for Privacy Requirements

Insurance companies, banks, securities firms and other financial services entities will have an additional eight months to comply with privacy requirements spelled out in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act passed last November.

The legislation, which removed barriers between the companies, had required each entity to comply with certain consumer protections by November 2000. While the rules will still go into effect in November, compliance will be voluntary until July 2001.

When the rules were published in preliminary form earlier this year, federal agencies were inundated with comments by financial services companies that felt compliance by November would be difficult.