The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has moved to rescind a Biden-era policy that imposed greater scrutiny on proposed bank mergers, a major regulatory rollback under the agency’s new Republican control in the Trump Administration.

The FDIC is one of several regulators that evaluate bank deals – others include the Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

At first, the FDIC sought to totally scrap the previous administration’s bank merger policy, but it then said it would temporarily reinstate the prior merger guidelines while launching a broader effort to “comprehensively” overhaul the policy.

The FDIC said it was also formally withdrawing pending Biden-era regulatory proposals on brokered deposits, corporate governance, and asset managers’ ownership of banks. The new rules will require a public comment period and then a final vote by the FDIC board.

Under the 2024 merger guidelines, this was the policy:

• Mergers that would result in institutions of $100 billion or more in total assets would face “heightened financial stability analysis.”
• Transactions that would result in institutions with $50 billion or more in total assets could require public hearings.
• Deals would also be evaluated for their effect on market concentration of products and services beyond the share of deposits.

The FDIC typically considers how the merger will affect competition in the local, regional, and national market and scrutinizes deals that create banks with more than $100 billion in assets.

The agency’s acting chair, Travis Hill, said in January that rescinding the Biden-era merger policy was a priority.

Hill – who had been the FDIC’s vice chair since 2023 – also said he plans to steer the agency toward a “more open-minded approach to innovation and technology adoption,” including a “more transparent approach to FinTech partnerships.”