Fresh in his new position as acting comptroller of the currency, Keith Noreika has already publicaly stated where he stands on changing the Dodd-Frank Act.
Noreika became the acting comptroller of the currency on May 5, replacing Thomas Curry, who recently completed his five-year term.
On Tuesday, Noreika gave a brief speech to OCC staff to introduce himself and a little bit of his history.
This isn’t Noreika’s first time working with the OCC. He noted in his speech that he spent his early law career at Covington where he worked with the 29th Comptroller of the Currency, John Dugan.
“I view the bank supervisors and staff at the OCC as second to none. The agency is the world’s premier safety and soundness regulator because of your expert judgment,” he said. “I want all of our staff to know that I am 1,000% behind them, and we need to trust and empower them to apply that sound judgment in the service of keeping the federal banking system safe, sound and fair.”
Then, Noreika then wrapped up his speech giving a preview of where he stands on Dodd-Frank.
Ten years after the crisis and seven years after the passing of Dodd-Frank, I do think that now is a good time to take stock of the rules implemented and actions taken to ensure the nation has the right sense of balance and coherence in regulating financial institutions to encourage economic growth, while maintaining the strength in our financial institutions. Regulation doesn’t work when it chokes investment, and banks can’t fulfill their public purpose if they can’t support their local customers, business, and communities.
At a very high level, we should seek opportunities to eliminate burden that does not make sense, while recommending and championing changes to legislation and regulation where it promotes the health and vitality of the federal banking system. We should seek to make the federal banking system more inclusive to accommodate new banks and more types of financial institutions engaged in the business of banking. And, we will defend the national bank and federal thrift charters, just as they have been defended over the past 150 years. I am very optimistic about the future of the federal banking system and this agency.
His sentiments fall right in line with other top Trump administration officials. Steven Mnuchin, the secretary of the Department of the Treasury, recently stated he supports the Financial CHOICE Act, the Republican-crafted replacement for the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
