New acting comptroller of the currency could lay groundwork for thorny policy issues

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is reportedly about to appoint a former senior Federal Reserve official to the post of acting comptroller of the currency.

Why should we care?
Secretary Yellen, according to the report, intends to appoint Michael Hsu, associate director of the Fed’s bank supervision and regulation division, as acting comptroller. Hsu will be assigned the title of first deputy comptroller, an appointment that is expected to be made in the coming weeks. He will be at the helm of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) until the Senate confirms a new comptroller, a process that could take months. Blake Paulson, a 36-year OCC career veteran who is currently acting comptroller, will stay at the OCC upon Hsu’s appointment, occupying the posts deputy comptroller and chief operating officer. The appointment of an acting comptroller helps lay the groundwork for a laundry list of thorny issues the new comptroller will likely have to address, including: the modernization of the Community Reinvestment Act; the future of the “true lender” rule (which has been attacked by consumer advocates and lawmakers as a way some digital lenders can evade state interest caps); and the fate of the unpublished Trump administration “fair access rule,” which prohibits national banks and federal savings associations that are “covered banks” from declining to provide financial services to industries such as fossil fuel companies, private prisons, gun manufacturers, and others.