Acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu expects to be in his role for the “foreseeable future,” he told agency employees in an internal email obtained by American Banker.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has been without a Senate-confirmed leader since Joseph Otting departed in May 2020. Hsu, a longtime Federal Reserve official, was named acting head one year later.
Last November, President Biden nominated Saule Omarova, a Cornell law professor, to head the agency, but she withdrew her name the following month amid attacks from congressional Republicans and banking industry representatives.
Since then, the White House hasn’t floated any new names to lead the agency.
“My hope and expectation is that I will remain in this role for the foreseeable future,” Hsu said in a May 10 email to OCC employees.
The OCC declined to comment. The White House did not return a request for comment.
In May, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., the top Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, asserted that under the Vacancies Reform Act, Hsu would be ineligible to serve as acting comptroller beyond July 5, 2022.
But Hsu wrote in a response to McHenry that the Vacancies Reform Act does not apply to his appointment. In a previously unreported letter, Hsu noted that he was appointed under a statute that specifies the first deputy comptroller serves as acting comptroller when the position is vacant.
Hsu’s May 10 email to OCC staffers alludes to uncertain feelings within the agency about multiple leadership changes over the last five years. He said the agency is currently at an “interesting point.”
“You have worked under multiple Comptrollers and Acting Comptrollers over the past five years, while enduring ever greater scrutiny by the public,” Hsu wrote to OCC employees.
“When I have asked, the words ‘whiplash’ and ‘pendulum’ and ‘see-saw’ have been used to describe how the continual changes in leadership have felt.”
Hsu also said that he’s been keeping his focus at the OCC on “problems that any Comptroller or Acting Comptroller would need to address to safeguard trust long-term in the national banking system.”
“Safety and soundness and fairness in banking are not political issues. They require objectivity, technical expertise, sensemaking and sound judgment to do well consistently. These are traits that you have in spades,” he wrote.
The acting comptroller rejected a moratorium on bank mergers, but reiterated concerns about the resolvability of large regional banks.
During his time at the OCC, Hsu has voted to reassess the way that bank regulators consider mergers, and has spoken about concerns with
In his email, Hsu expressed pride in various OCC accomplishments during his first year as acting comptroller. Those items include work on
Looking ahead, Hsu said that the agency is “preparing for novel bank charter applications and working with our interagency peers to more clearly define the bank regulatory perimeter and prevent a race to the bottom."
