Acting Comptroller Issues Statement in Support of FDIC Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Special Assessments

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, OCC, has published a statement as regards the proposed new rule of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) which seeks to impose additional levies on the uninsured deposits of financial institutions for the period of two years to recover the losses to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) caused by the failures of the Silicon Valley Bank and the Signature Bank.
In its statement, the Comptroller strongly supports the initiative of the FDIC for the following reasons:
1. All financial institutions, particularly those with uninsured deposits, benefit from the FDIC’s action to safeguard the uninsured deposits of the two banks, as without this intervention, it is highly probable that a bank run would have occurred causing trouble to all other institutions as well. Therefore, the Comptroller considers the levy to be fair.
2. The action establishes a „healthy precedent“ to deal with situations like this one and imposes fees on those institutions only that benefit from the risk exemption for uninsured deposits.
3. The action exempts small institutions from making the additional assessment, which is vital for the functioning of community banks.