In testimony to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Travis Hill provided an update on the agency’s “rightsizing” work to make supervision less process-driven and more focused on material financial risks, alongside broader initiatives spanning capital, resolution and innovation-related policy. On supervision, the FDIC is reviewing comments on an October 2025 joint proposal with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to define “unsafe or unsound practice” under section 8 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act and to establish uniform standards for matters requiring attention and non-binding supervisory observations, and it has begun reviewing outstanding supervisory criticisms to close those that do not align with the new approach. Changes highlighted also included finalized guidelines establishing an independent Office of Supervisory Appeals, work with the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council to refocus CAMELS definitions on core financial risks, an increase in the continuous examination threshold from USD 10 billion to USD 30 billion in assets with a hybrid approach for banks between USD 10 billion and USD 30 billion, and less frequent consumer compliance and Community Reinvestment Act exams for most banks under USD 3 billion with strong ratings. Hill also pointed to the withdrawal of interagency leveraged lending guidance, interagency capital actions including a final rule modifying the enhanced supplementary leverage ratio and a proposal to lower the community bank leverage ratio requirement to 8 percent with an extended grace period, streamlined insured depository institution resolution plan content for the current cycle, measures to improve failed-bank marketing and support nonbank participation in auctions, an interim final rule amending special assessment collection tied to the 2023 systemic risk determination, a final rule raising and indexing multiple regulatory thresholds including more than twenty in Part 363, and a proposed GENIUS Act application framework for payment stablecoin issuance by subsidiaries of FDIC-supervised insured depository institutions. Next steps include finalizing the “unsafe or unsound” framework after review of comments that closed on 29 December 2025 and providing public notice once the Office of Supervisory Appeals is operational. The comment period for the GENIUS Act stablecoin application proposal has been extended to 18 May 2026, and the FDIC expects to propose a separate rule on prudential requirements for FDIC-supervised payment stablecoin issuers; a broader notice of proposed rulemaking to reform Bank Secrecy Act AML/CFT program obligations is also in development with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and other banking agencies.

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