Recent Regulatory Activity on Bank Merger
Policy
April 15, 2025
Bank mergers are generally approved by the federal banking agencies and the Department of Justice. In
September 2024, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation (FDIC) updated the way they evaluate bank merger applications. The OCC and FDIC policy
statements differ in some details, but the then-acting comptroller characterized them as “broadly
consistent.” (The Federal Reserve did not update its approach.) On the same day, the Department of
Justice (DOJ) announced that it was withdrawing its existing bank merger guidelines from 1995 and
replacing them with a new addendum to its 2023 guidelines.
Congress has maintained a general interest in bank merger policy amidst a trend of consolidation. For
example, in May 2024, the House Committee on Financial Services held a subcommittee hearing on bank
merger policy. H.J.Res. 92 and S.J.Res. 13 would use the Congressional Review Act to overturn the
aforementioned rule and prevent the OCC from issuing substantially similar rules in the future. In March
2025, the FDIC issued a proposal to rescind its update. This In Focus provides an overview of the updated
policies and recent relevant regulatory and legislative activity.
The bank merger process is based on a statutory framework that can be changed only by Congress. The
recent policy statements by the OCC and FDIC are interpretations of how that framework can best be
implemented. The agencies have significant discretion in how to interpret the broad statutory framework,
and these policy statements were viewed as setting out a philosophy that was less likely to approve
mergers involving, for example, large banks than was the case previously. Nevertheless, mergers are
approved on a case-by-case basis based on the agency’s interpretation of the statutory factors with or
without an existing policy statement. For background on the bank merger approval process, see CRS In
Focus IF11956, Bank Mergers and Acquisitions, by Marc Labonte and Andrew P. Scott.
OCC Rule
In September 2024, the OCC finalized a rule on mergers that removed an automatic approval process for
certain applications that were eligible for “expedited review.” The rule eliminates current regulatory
provisions under which (1) certain applications are considered automatically approved as of 15 days after
the close of the comment period unless the OCC notifies the applicant and (2) certain transactions can be
filed under a streamlined application form. The OCC argued that the effect on regulatory burden of both
