Comptroller Gould Testifies on Agency Priorities

WASHINGTON—Comptroller Jonathan V. Gould today testified on the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC) priorities and activities before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

Excerpts from Comptroller Gould’s testimony are below. The full written testimony can be found here.

On risk tolerance: “In the years since the 2008 financial crisis, Washington too often sought to eliminate rather than manage risks, resulting in a less relevant and diverse banking system. Unelected bureaucrats discouraged prudent risk-taking, stifled innovation, and drove credit out of reach for small businesses and communities. The Dodd-Frank Act, far from ending too big to fail, created a ‘moat’ around the very largest banks and introduced ‘too-small-to-succeed.’ Community banks with less than one billion dollars in total assets have since seen their numbers cut in half.”

On debanking: “No American should be denied access to banking products and services because of political or religious beliefs or lawful business activity. We are implementing President Trump’s Executive Order on Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans by, among other things, reviewing the activities of the largest national banks and investigating complaints of alleged debanking. We have also proposed a rule to eliminate reputation risk from supervision, a tool too often used to debank politically disfavored individuals or groups. We are intent on ensuring banks provide access to banking products and services based on individualized, objective, risk-based criteria, not politics or ideology.”

On supervision: “The OCC is strengthening its supervision by returning to a risk-based approach rooted in law with an emphasis on examiner judgment, not arbitrary checklists. Examiners will focus on issues that materially affect banks’ safety and soundness. We are also codifying reforms to the ‘Matters Requiring Attention’ process, clarifying enforcement standards, and ensuring supervisory tools are used proportionately and predictably.”

On regulatory reform: “The OCC is working with our interagency partners to repropose the Basel III capital rulemaking, and evaluating opportunities to improve the Community Reinvestment Act framework. These efforts share a common principle: regulation should safeguard the system, not smother it. We are also advancing BSA/AML modernization, and targeted burden relief for community institutions. Taken together, these actions will make our regulatory architecture simpler, stronger, and more accountable.”

On innovation: “The GENIUS Act is this Congress’s effort to advance American innovation through payment stablecoins, and we look forward to comments on our proposal to implement it. We also welcome applicants for bank charters. Their renewed interest is a return to the norm and a sign of a healthy banking system. We will continue to evaluate applications on a case-by-case basis and in an even-handed fashion, consistent with the statutory factors and our high supervisory standards. We will also work with OCC-supervised banks to clarify new ways for banks to conduct the very old business of banking and embrace new technologies like AI, ensuring these opportunities are available to all banks that wish to take advantage of them rather than a privileged few.”