Thomas Curry will officially step down as comptroller of the currency on May 5 after more than five years at the helm of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
Until a replacement is named by the Trump administration, Keith Noreika will serve as acting comptroller of the currency. He is currently a partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP and was a partner at Covington & Burling, specializing in banking regulation.
“Serving as comptroller of the currency has been the highlight of my career,” said Curry. “The comptroller is a special job and I am proud to have served with 4,000 men and women who showed such deep dedication to the agency’s mission of ensuring the safety and soundness of the federal banking system and the fair treatment of its customers.”
Curry completed his five-year term on April 9, and rumors started to spread as early as March on who the possible replacement would be.
According to a previous report from CNBC, back in March, President Donald Trump was reportedly considering installing Joseph Otting, another former top OneWest Bank official, to serve as the comptroller of the currency, one of the country’s top financial regulators.
Otting served as the CEO of OneWest from 2010 until 2015, working alongside Steven Mnuchin, the recently installed Secretary of the Department of the Treasury and the bank's former chairman.
To serve as comptroller, Otting would need to be confirmed by the Senate, and Senate Democrats would likely hold OneWest’s foreclosure practices against him, as was the case with Mnuchin.
And Curry’s position isn’t the only one up for grabs. The CNBC also noted that the Trump administration is considering Thomas Vartanian, who “advised Bank of America on its purchase of the troubled mortgage lender Countrywide during the financial crisis,” to replace Daniel Tarullo, who recently announced his resignation from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
