WASHINGTON, D.C.— Dennis Kelleher, President, CEO, and Co-founder, issued the following statement in response to reports that the Trump administration is planning to merge the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”) and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) into the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”).

“Our economy depends on a strong financial system which in turn depends on the faith, trust, and confidence of the American people in the safety and soundness of banks. That’s why people deposit their money in and do business with banks. That faith, trust, and confidence only results from a well-supervised and well-regulated banking system. That’s what is at stake when considering merging, weakening, and impairing the key banking regulators, which will endanger our economy, financial and banking systems, consumers, savers, and financial stability.

“Adding insult to injury, merging the FDIC, CFPB, or any other agency into the OCC would require ignoring the OCC’s egregious decades-long record of failure to adequately supervise banks or protect bank depositors and customers. First, it failed to properly supervise the Wall Street megabanks that failed and caused the 2008 Financial Crisis (“2008 Crash”). Second, it failed to use its authorities to protect consumers from subprime criminals in the years before that Crash. Third, it sued states to stop and preempt them from using their consumer protection laws to stop the subprime criminals. Fourth, after the 2008 Crash, it failed year-after-year-after year to regulate, supervise, detect, or stop Wells Fargo from engaging in widespread customer abuses and illegal conduct. Fifth, it blatantly enabled regulatory arbitrage by ignoring racial discrimination and fair lending failures and approving the Flagstar Bank-New York Community Bank merger.

“The federal banking agencies are vital watchdogs that every day protect Main Street Americans’ savings, detect and stop consumer harm, ensure the safety and soundness of the banks and banking system, and punish banks and bankers when they break the rules and laws. Every American knows their bank savings accounts are protected by  the FDIC, which has been the gold standard for protecting savers’ bank deposits since it was created 92 years ago, as proved yet again in the 2023 banking crisis (“2023 Crisis”). The CFPB was created to stand up for Main Street Americans against giant financial firms who have taken their money and it has forced financial companies to return more than $20 billion to almost 200 million ripped off Americans in all 50 states. The agencies are by no means perfect or perfectly organized, as was proved by their many failures that contributed to the 2008 Crash and 2023 Crisis. However, it is an overriding imperative that any consolidation be done in a thoughtful, deliberate, and strategic way so that the American people, the financial system, and our economy are protected, not endangered.

“Merging the FDIC into the OCC would also kill the two agencies that are focused on community banks, which are the lifeblood of local communities across America. Every day, the FDIC supervises more than 4,000 community banks, making sure that they are financially strong, treat customers fairly, and lend to families and small businesses to support the local economy. It also supports banks that focus on lending to rural communities as well as minorities and underserved populations.

“While bankers have long opposed bank regulation and supervision, even the banks that are subject to oversight and regulation from multiple regulators do not think that consolidation being considered by the Trump administration is a wise move. For instance, about half of the hundreds of CEOs and executives from banks across the country who were recently polled opposed consolidation. They also nearly unanimously supported keeping regulatory agencies independent to support and facilitate their vital role in overseeing and auditing banks. While some of the bankers’ motives are self-interested (like wanting to maintain the opportunities for regulatory arbitrage among various regulators) many are not: no one knows better than a banker how important faith, trust and confidence in the banking system is and how quickly it can evaporate and lead to a crisis if not cascading failures and a contagion-caused banking crash.

“The proposed merger would reduce transparency, oversight, and accountability for the American people while overly politicizing bank regulation and supervision. First, rather than having three accountable agency heads who are available to testify before and answer to Congress, there would only be one—the head of the OCC, also known as the Comptroller of the Currency. Second, because the OCC is a part of the Treasury Department and the head of the OCC reports to the Secretary of the Treasury, a Presidential appointee, the proposed merger would almost certainly politicize bank regulation and supervision. That contrasts with the FDIC, which is an independent agency mandated to protect the savings deposits of Americans and the safety and soundness of banks. To achieve this, the FDIC has a board with five members, two of which bring the perspectives of other agencies to ensure that all the public constituencies of banks have a seat at the table.

“Similarly, merging the CFPB into the OCC would almost certainly kill consumer protection given the OCC’s miserable history of failing to protect consumers. In fact, the OCC’s anti-consumer protection mentality, culture, and history goes so far that it sued states before the 2008 Crash to prevent them from using their consumer protection laws to stop subprime predators. Worse, after preempting states from using their laws to protect consumers, the OCC then disregarded its duty to protect them itself. It left Americans across the country defenseless against lawbreakers and criminals and enabled the subprime bubble to inflate and ultimately explode into the catastrophic 2008 financial crash. No one in their right mind should let the OCC have any role in consumer protection with that record.”