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FDIC Law, Regulations, Related Acts
Search Help and Tips
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Welcome to the Rules and Regs search facility. Please select a help topic from the list below:
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Using the Search Screen
The simplest way to search the FDIC Rules & Regs is to:
- Enter your search criteria into the field presented.
- Click the "Submit Query" button.
By default, the search engine will search all of the FDIC Rules & Regs and present any matching documents to you 25 at a time. Each result is assigned a score that represents the "strength" of the match (1.00 being the strongest). The results list is ordered according to score with the strongest matches being listed first.
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Searching for Keywords
Search keywords are either:
- A single word
- Two or more words separated by Boolean operator like AND, OR, or a comma (which is the same as OR).
For example:
- bank
- bank AND examination
- bank OR examination (same as bank, examination)
When searching for a keyword, the search engine will also search for words that share the same stem. For example, a search on the keyword banking will also search for words that have the stem bank, meaning your results may include documents that contain the words bank, banks, banker, and so on.
Tip: If you don't want your search to include stemmed words, set up your search to look for an exact match using quotation marks.
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Searching for Phrases
Phrases are two or more words not separated by an operator. Examples include:
- bank examiner
- termination of insured status
- Community Reinvestment Act
If you specify a phrase in the search criteria field, the search engine will return documents that contain the entire phrase.
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Finding Exact Matches
To find exact matches to your keyword or phrase, enclose the keyword or phrase in quotation marks (" "). For example:
- "banking"
- finds documents containing the word banking and excludes documents that contain only a stemmed form of banking such as bank or banks.
- "bank examination" AND insurance
- finds documents containing the words bank examination and an instance of insurance or one of its stemmed forms (insure, insured, etc.).
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Performing Conditional Searches
The FDIC search engine supports many features that allow you to compose your own advanced queries. These features include:
- Using Logical (Boolean) Operators - You can use the following words to refine your search query:
AND - Finds only documents which contain both search terms.
- Example: FDIC AND banking
- Result: Narrows search results
OR - Finds pages which contain any one of the search terms.
- Example: FDIC OR banking
- Result: Expands search results
Note: Separating keywords with OR is equivalent to separating them with commas (,).
NOT - Use with the AND operator to exclude terms from your search.
- Example: FDIC AND NOT press release
- Result: Narrows search results. In this case, matches would include documents that contain "FDIC" but not the words "press release".
Note: Logical operators are not case-sensitive.
TIP: Enclose the words "and," "or" or "not" in double quotes to search for them, since they usually function as search operators.
- Example: purchase "and" assumption
- Result: Finds the phrase purchase and assumption
- Using the <NEAR> Command - Finds pages which contain the search words you enter within close proximity of one another.
- Example 1: FDIC <NEAR> banking
- Example 2: FDIC <NEAR/5> banking (Find two words within five words of each other.)
- Result: Narrows search results
- Searching with Wildcard Characters - You may also use these wildcard characters in search queries:
| This wildcard character | indicates | Example |
| ? | any one alphanumeric character | Section 2? |
| * | zero or more alphanumeric characters | bank regul* |
* - Matches any number of characters.
- Example: Section 229.* will match Section 229.1, Section 229.30, Section 229.30(a), etc.
- Result: Expands search results by matching more words
? - Matches one character
- Example: Section 229.? will match Section 229.1 and Section 229.2, but not Section 229.30.
- Result: Expands search results, but somewhat limits wildcarding
Note: To search for ? or * as literal characters, surround them with double quotes, e.g. "*".
Also, when searching for other special (non-alphanumeric) characters such as ampersand (&), parentheses, exclamation (!), etc., you should place them in double quotes.
- Example: why"?"
- Result: Finds why?
- Example: section "8(a)"
- Result: Finds the phrase section 8(a)
- Example: rules "&" regs
- Result: Finds the phrase rules & regs
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Understanding Your Search Results
For each document it finds that matches your criteria, the search engine will present you with the following:
- The document's score (1.00 is the highest possible score, indicating a very strong match)
- The document's title
- The document's URL
- An excerpt of the first few lines of the document
The document's title and URL will both be hyper links. You can click on the title to display the document in the Results View Form, which displays the matched document with your keywords highlighted in red. In the Result View Form, click on the " <" or ">" marks around highlighted words to navigate to the previous or to the next highlighted word. Other navigation options allow you to return to the results list or to view the next or previous documents in the results list.
Tip: If you don't see the highlighted keywords in the first screen of information, use your browser's Find function to take you to the first occurrence of ">" in the text. From there, you can use the navigation described above.
You can click the document's URL to load it into the browser normally.
Tip: You can use your browser's Find function to locate a keyword you specified in your search criteria.
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