PrefBlog

There’s an interesting kerfuffle amongst US bank agencies:

Earlier today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) posted on its website a document, purportedly approved by the FDIC, requesting comment on bank mergers. No such document has been approved by the FDIC.

The FDIC has longstanding internal policies and procedures for circulating and conducting votes of its Board of Directors, and for issuing documents for publication in the Federal Register. In this case, there was no valid vote by the Board, and no such request for information and comment has been approved by the agency for publication in the Federal Register.

The FDIC has a proud 88-year history of Board members working together in a collegial manner. This history has spanned many Presidential administrations, and countless philosophical differences on substantive issues among Board members over the years. Notwithstanding the actions taken today, the FDIC expects this time-honored tradition of collegiality and comity to continue.

This reflects a blog post on consumerfinance.gov:

The law requires that the Director of the CFPB serve as a member of the Board of Directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The FDIC plays a critical role when it comes to reviewing bank mergers and ensuring financial stability in our country. As agencies across the government are rethinking their approach to combat anticompetitive consolidation and practices, the FDIC’s Board has voted to launch a review of the agency’s Bank Merger Act policies and invites the public to weigh in. We will accept comments for 60 days from the publication in the Federal Register.

The end of the post has a link to a joint statement by FDIC Director Martin J. Gruenberg and Director Rohit Chopra (the latter being the author of the blog post), which has been saved for posterity here in case it mysteriously disappears during routine maintenance.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 9th, 2021 at 10:29 pm and is filed under Market Action. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.