(Bloomberg) — Martin Gruenberg, the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., will step down on Jan. 19.
“It has been the greatest honor of my career to serve at the FDIC,” Gruenberg said in a message Tuesday to agency employees. “I have especially valued the privilege of working with the dedicated public servants who carry out the critically important mission of this agency.”
His departure will allow President-elect Donald Trump to appoint Gruenberg’s replacement and Republicans to gain control of the agency, speeding up a potential banking reform agenda, which in many instances must be jointly agreed by the other federal banking regulators.
Gruenberg already had agreed to resign after a months-long independent investigation by the law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton found credible allegations of “sexual harassment, discrimination and other interpersonal misconduct” at the agency.
Gruenberg said earlier this year that he would leave his post once a successor was confirmed. President Joe Biden chose Christy Goldsmith Romero, a Democratic commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, as his replacement, but her nomination has remained in limbo.
The upheaval at the agency further clouds a landmark bank-capital proposal meant to force the nation’s largest lenders to hold significantly more capital to buffer against losses. The FDIC, in conjunction with the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, unveiled the original draft in July 2023, sparking furious opposition from the banking industry.
A revised version previewed in September would cut in half the proposed capital increase to 9% for the US global systemically important banks, including Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. But that plan drew new criticism, Bloomberg has reported, from two Republican FDIC board members as well as from Democrat Rohit Chopra.
(Updates with additional details on Gruenberg’s departure.)
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