In the hours after Donald Trump was sworn into office Monday, Republican members of multi-member financial regulatory commissions took the reins from their departed Democratic predecessors.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Vice Chair Travis Hill was named acting chair by President Trump Monday afternoon. Hill’s predecessor, FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg, resigned Sunday ahead of Trump’s inauguration, leaving Hill in charge of the agency pending either a formal nomination by Trump or the confirmation of a successor.
Likewise, National Credit Union Administration Vice Chair Kyle Hauptman was named chair of the NCUA by President Trump on Monday. Previous NCUA Chair Todd Harper has committed to stay on the NCUA board through the end of his term, which expires on April 10, 2027.
Republican member of the Securities and Exchange Commission Mark Uyeda was also selected by Trump to serve as acting chair of the SEC. Trump has tapped Paul Atkins, a longtime regulatory lawyer and former member of the SEC, to chair the agency on a permanent basis. Trump also named David Lebryk, a career Treasury official serving as Fiscal Assistant Secretary, as acting Treasury Secretary pending the confirmation of hedge fund manager Scott Bessent as permanent Treasury Secretary.
Trump took office Monday with promises to sign scores of executive orders reversing Biden-era policies and establishing new norms for the government that he now oversees. A summary of planned executive actions outlined by the White House on Monday are new requirements that all federal employees return to in-office work and a freeze on all “bureaucrat hiring except in essential areas to end the onslaught of useless and overpaid DEI activists buried into the federal workforce.”
One executive action that Trump has not yet fulfilled as of Monday afternoon is the removal of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra, who had vowed to remain in office until so removed by Trump. Trump’s advisors had cited removing Chopra and hitting a “reset” of the CFPB as top day-one priorities, and Elon Musk — a billionaire entrepreneur and co-chair of the nascent Department of Government Efficiency — has mused about eliminating the agency altogether. Such an action would require an act of Congress.
The CFPB has drawn particular ire from bankers and their Republican allies in Congress in recent years after the agency spent much of the last four years adopting an aggressive regulatory and enforcement strategy. The bureau has zeroed in on so-called “junk fees” in financial services as a dire problem for consumers, passing a rule limiting credit card late fees to $8 in May and finalizing another rule to limit overdraft fees to $5 in most cases in December. Those and other rules have been challenged in court, and those rules that have been finalized since August could be subject to a Congressional Review Act resolution that would nullify them if the resolution is passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the president within 60 legislative days of their finalization.
Acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu has also apparently not been replaced as of Monday afternoon, with his name still appearing atop the OCC leadership masthead and no indication of another acting Comptroller being named among Trump’s acting or interim leaders.
