FDIC Chairman McWilliams Resigns Over Policy Clashes

Jelena McWilliams, a Trump-era appointee banking regulator, has resigned as of Friday (Dec. 31), per a Financial Times report.

This will offer the new Biden admin a better way to reshape how financial oversight works under the new presidency.

McWilliams said she will leave the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) by Feb. 4 — over a year earlier than her term was supposed to last.

It’s happening because of some friction between the FDIC and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which acts as a consumer watchdog, over a review of banking mergers.

McWilliams had been facing off against FDIC board member Martin Gruenberg and CFPB director Rohit Chopra, both Democrats, who wanted to review rules related to the bank merger approval process.

McWilliams called the current situation around that “unprecedented,” saying that the conflict “isn’t about bank mergers” in a Wall Street Journal opinion article.

“If it were, board members would have been willing to work with me and the FDIC staff rather than attempt a hostile takeover of the FDIC internal processes, staff and board agenda,” she wrote. “This episode is an attempt to wrest control from an independent agency’s chairman with a change in the administration.”

In her resignation letter, McWilliams said the financial system had been a “tangible storm of strength” for the U.S. economy during the pandemic.

PYMNTS writes that the Biden administration has been looking at giving former Fed governor Sarah Bloom Raskin a high position with the Federal Reserve.

See also: Biden Considering Sarah Bloom Raskin to Take Top Fed Banking Spot

Raskin would reportedly be in charge of supervising the bank, with the position being “the country’s most influential overseer” of the banking system. Her appointment might be a win for progressives in the Democratic party.

Biden is reportedly also looking at two economists for seats soon to be vacant on the board — Lisa Cook, a Michigan State professor, and Philip Jefferson, a professor with North Carolina’s Davidson College.