President Donald Trump named Travis Hill as the acting chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
Hill previously worked at the FDIC from 2018 to 2022, as deputy to the chairman for policy. Before that, Hill served as senior advisor to the chairman. In these roles, he oversaw and coordinated regulatory and policy initiatives at the agency and advised the chairman on regulatory and policy matters.
“It is my honor and privilege to serve as Acting Chairman of the FDIC,” Hill said. “While the FDIC faces a broad range of issues, and as always will fulfill our mandate to promote a safe, sound, and resilient banking system, below is a list of matters I expect the FDIC to focus on in the coming weeks and months.”
Hill listed several priorities in his new role as acting FDIC chairman, including:
- Conduct a wholesale review of regulations, guidance, and manuals to ensure our rules and approach promote a vibrant, growing economy;
- Adopt a more open-minded approach to innovation and technology adoption, including a more transparent approach to fintech partnerships and to digital assets and tokenization, and engagement to address growing technology costs for community banks.
- Improve the bank merger approval process and replace the 2024 Statement of Policy to ensure that merger transactions that satisfy the Bank Merger Act are approved in a timely way;
- Withdraw problematic proposals from the past three years, such as proposals on brokered deposits and corporate governance;
- Improve the supervisory process to focus more on core financial risks and less on process — and reevaluate the supervisory appeals process;
- Enhance readiness and preparedness for resolving large financial institutions;
- Pursue adjustments to our capital and liquidity rules to appropriately balance driving economic growth with ensuring safety and soundness and resilience to shocks;
- Encourage more de novo activity so there is a healthy pipeline of new entrants in the banking sector;
- Modernize implementation of the Bank Secrecy Act;
- Study deposit behavior to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the relative stability of different types of deposits and depositors;
- Reevaluate our disclosure practices, and expand transparency;
- Ensure the FDIC remains within our statutory mandates;
- Pursue internal efficiencies to ensure we are serving as responsible stewards of the Deposit Insurance Fund; and
- Reestablish a strong workforce culture, where misconduct is not tolerated and those who engage in misconduct are held accountable.
Prior to joining the FDIC, Hill served as senior counsel at the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs from 2013 to 2018. In this role, he participated in the drafting and negotiating of numerous bipartisan bills. Also, Hill worked as a policy analyst at Regions Financial Corporation from 2011 to 2013. He received a Bachelor of Science from Duke University, where he studied economics and political science, and a Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center.