Summary

Recently, several proposals have been made to consolidate the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Some of these proposals would merge all of these regulatory groups into a single independent agency--the Federal Banking Commission--while others would retain more than one regulator. The relative strengths and weaknesses of each major approach need to be carefully examined. GAO supports reducing the existing number of federal banking regulators. However, until the questions about the Federal Reserve's role on bank supervision can be resolved, GAO believes that it would be logical to combine OTS, OCC, and FDIC's supervisory responsibilities for state-chartered banks that are not members of the Federal Reserve System into one independent agency.