Fed official tapped as interim OCC chief: Report

WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reportedly plans to name a senior Federal Reserve official to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on an interim basis.

Michael Hsu, an associate director of bank supervision at the Fed, will be appointed within weeks by Yellen to lead the OCC, according to a Wall Street Journal report published Monday afternoon.

After joining the OCC, Hsu will be assigned the title of first deputy comptroller, effectively putting him in charge of the national bank regulator until a formal nominee for comptroller of the currency can be confirmed by the Senate — a process that routinely stretches months. To date, the Biden administration has not announced a nominee to lead the OCC.

More than three months after President Biden took office, some analysts have blamed the administration for leaving the agency on autopilot from the Trump administration by not naming an acting comptroller more quickly. In the meantime, the agency has been led by Blake Paulson, a 36-year OCC veteran. According to the Journal, Paulson will remain at the OCC as a deputy comptroller and retain his title as chief operating officer.

Bloomberg News

The next comptroller of the currency will face a long list of policy challenges and decisions upon taking office, including a redux of modernizing the Community Reinvestment Act. Advocates have urged the Biden administration to install an acting comptroller to prepare certain policy action items that a Senate-confirmed comptroller could implement soon after taking office. At the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, acting Director Dave Uejio is serving that role as Rohit Chopra awaits Senate action on his nomination to lead the CFPB.

The incoming comptroller will also need to decide the fate of the agency’s controversial “true lender” rule, a regulation that has come under intense scrutiny by Congress after consumer advocates claimed the rule would undercut state interest rate caps across the country.

There’s also the matter of an unpublished “fair access” rule, championed by former acting comptroller Brian Brooks. That rulemaking was intended to punish banks for making business decisions deemed “political” such as withholding services from the fossil fuel industry. The next comptroller will likely decide whether to implement, revise or throw out the rule.