Statement from Acting Chairman Travis Hill

WASHINGTON – On January 20, 2025, Travis Hill became Acting Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).  Acting Chairman Hill issued the following statement:

“It is my honor and privilege to serve as Acting Chairman of the FDIC. While the FDIC faces a broad range of issues, and as always will fulfill our mandate to promote a safe, sound, and resilient banking system, below is a list of matters I expect the FDIC to focus on in the coming weeks and months.”

• Conduct a wholesale review of regulations, guidance, and manuals to ensure our rules and approach promote a vibrant, growing economy.   
• Adopt a more open-minded approach to innovation and technology adoption, including (1) a more transparent approach to fintech partnerships and to digital assets and tokenization, and (2) engagement to address growing technology costs for community banks. 
• Improve the bank merger approval process and replace the 2024 Statement of Policy to ensure that merger transactions that satisfy the Bank Merger Act are approved in a timely way.   
• Withdraw problematic proposals from the past three years, such as proposals on brokered deposits and corporate governance. 
• Improve the supervisory process to focus more on core financial risks and less on process, and reevaluate the supervisory appeals process. 
• Enhance our readiness and preparedness for resolving large financial institutions, incorporating lessons from the far-too-costly failures of 2023, including the need to be much more proactive and nimble and to improve the bidding process.   
• Pursue adjustments to our capital and liquidity rules to appropriately balance driving economic growth with ensuring safety and soundness and resilience to shocks.
• Encourage more de novo activity so there is a healthy pipeline of new entrants in the banking sector. 
• Work to ensure law-abiding customers have, and do not lose, access to bank accounts and banking services. 
• Modernize implementation of the Bank Secrecy Act. 
• Study deposit behavior to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the relative stability of different types of deposits and depositors.   
• Reevaluate our disclosure practices, and expand transparency in areas that do not impact safety and soundness or financial stability. 
• Ensure the FDIC remains within our statutory mandates, and stops coloring outside the lines. 
• Pursue internal efficiencies to ensure we are serving as responsible stewards of the Deposit Insurance Fund. 
• Reestablish a strong workforce culture, where misconduct is not tolerated and those who engage in misconduct are held accountable.