FDIC Proposes Fast Track for Bank Merger Reviews

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) board of directors voted Thursday (Sept. 17) to approve a proposed rule that it said would make the agency’s review of bank merger transactions faster, more predictable and tailored to the potential risks of the transaction.

The proposed rule would impose discipline around timelines in these reviews and would modernize the framework, the FDIC said in a Thursday (Sept. 17) press release.

The proposed rule would also account for credit unions and centrally booked deposits in the competitive effects analysis, establish a letter filing process with “deemed approval” for “de minimis merger transactions,” tailor other merger filing requirements to reduce burden and processing times, limit and clarify the FDIC’s discretion to remove a filing from expedited processing, and reform the agency’s approach to evaluating statutory factors under the Bank Merger Act, according to the release.

The FDIC board approved a notice of proposed rulemaking and will accept comments on the proposal for 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register, per the release.

The proposal was approved unanimously by the three members of the board, according to the FDIC Board Meeting page.

FDIC Chairman Travis Hill said in a statement released Thursday that the proposal was motivated by concerns that the agency’s merger review process has often taken too long and that the analytical framework underlying the bank merger process needs reform because the banking landscape is dramatically different from when the Bank Merger Act was written.

Hill said that since he became chairman, the FDIC has reduced the number of days from receipt of application to final action from 107 days in 2023 and 2024, to 80 in 2025 and 64 so far in 2026.

“The proposal would take the additional step of codifying a series of timelines for processing different types of merger applications,” Hill said. “This would include a ‘rapid processing’ framework for de minimis transactions, which are acquisitions of extremely small targets or certain types of operating subsidiaries and which would be processed in as little as five days.”

PYMNTS reported in March 2025 that Hill, who was the FDIC’s new acting chairman at the time, laid out an ambitious agenda at the start of the new administration and said he would “conduct a wholesale review of regulations, guidance and manuals.”