The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency published a recap of Acting Comptroller Rodney E. Hood’s five-month agenda, highlighting supervisory and policy actions intended to strengthen the federal banking system while reducing regulatory burden, promoting financial inclusion, expanding permissible bank activity involving digital assets, and supporting bank–fintech partnerships. The update cites conditional approval of Discover Bank’s merger into Capital One, a letter reaffirming federal preemption in the dual banking system, and joint work with other federal banking agencies on potential actions to mitigate payments fraud with a focus on check fraud. Burden-reduction steps include withdrawing from the International Climate Organization, ending examinations for reputation risk, withdrawing climate-related financial risk management principles for large financial institutions, and issuing an interim final rule restoring streamlined application and expedited review procedures for certain bank merger applications. On prudential requirements, it notes support for an interagency notice of proposed rulemaking to modify the enhanced supplementary leverage ratio and for a separate interagency proposal to modify certain regulatory capital standards, alongside an interagency order exempting a Customer Identification Program Rule requirement to allow use of third parties to collect taxpayer identification number information. For digital assets and innovation, interpretive letters confirmed that national banks and federal savings associations may conduct crypto-asset custody, certain stablecoin activities, and node verification activities, may buy and sell assets held in custody at a customer’s direction, and may outsource bank-permissible crypto-asset activities; the OCC also issued a request for information on community bank digitalization and referenced an interagency statement on risk-management considerations for crypto-asset safekeeping. Financial inclusion efforts highlighted Project REACh, financial literacy outreach, and homeownership-related messaging, as well as conditional approval of a financial technology business model for a national bank and discussion of artificial intelligence in financial services. Several items referenced in the recap were issued for public comment or information gathering, including the interagency work on payments fraud, the enhanced supplementary leverage ratio proposal, the capital standards proposal, and the OCC’s community bank digitalization request for information.
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency 2025-07-14
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency highlights Acting Comptroller Hood’s agenda including streamlined merger reviews and expanded crypto-asset activities
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency outlined Acting Comptroller Rodney E. Hood’s agenda, focusing on strengthening the federal banking system, reducing regulatory burdens, and promoting financial inclusion. Key actions include conditional approval of Discover Bank’s merger into Capital One, support for modifying leverage ratios and capital standards, and initiatives on digital assets and fintech partnerships. The update also highlights efforts to mitigate payments fraud and enhance financial literacy.