Michael J. Hsu will become acting Comptroller of the Currency May 10, the Treasury Department said Friday following a designation by Secretary Janet Yellen.
The Treasury said current Acting Comptroller Blake Paulson – who has held that role since Jan. 14, following the resignation of another acting comptroller, Brian P. Brooks – will reassume his role as senior deputy comptroller and chief operating officer within the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
According to the Treasury, Hsu was most recently associate director in the Federal Reserve’s division of supervision and regulation, where he led the Large Institution Supervision Coordinating Committee (LISCC) Program. That group, the Treasury said, supervises the global systemically important banking (G-SIB) companies operating in the United States.
In previous positions, he served at the Treasury, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), according to Treasury.
Hsu holds a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University, a Master of Science in finance from George Washington University, and a Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law.
“I appreciate the confidence Secretary Yellen has shown in me by appointing me to this important post,” Hsu said in a statement. “I am looking forward to building on the agency’s long history and rich heritage. My focus as acting comptroller will be on solving urgent problems and addressing pressing issues until the 32nd Comptroller is confirmed.”
The OCC has been without a confirmed comptroller since Joseph Otting resigned in May of last year after serving one of the shortest tenures in the job in nearly 100 years. In all, he held the job for 29 months (after succeeding another acting comptroller, Keith Noreika in 2017) and was the first comptroller since 1985 not to serve at least a full five-year term in the job.
On the same day that Otting announced his resignation about a year ago (May 20, 2020), the OCC finalized a controversial final rule making changes to regulations implementing the anti-redlining Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). That final rule, first proposed in December 2019, was arguably Otting’s most significant regulatory action since taking office in November 2017.
Michael J. Hsu to Become Acting Comptroller of the Currency May 10, 2021