For all the signals of policy change President Donald Trump brought in the first week of his second term in the White House, two banking regulator figureheads remained perhaps surprisingly constant: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s acting chief, Michael Hsu.

Given the breakneck pace with which the CFPB was issuing final rules (see, open banking; overdraft reduction) and opening legal action (see, Capital One, Zelle, Comerica) in the waning days of the Biden administration, it may have been logical to assume that Chopra’s ouster would have been a “day one” event.

The Supreme Court, after all, ruled in 2020 that the CFPB director is an at-will employee – and there’s precedent: Former President Joe Biden asked for Trump-era CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger’s resignation less than an hour after he’d been sworn in.

However, “just because Trump doesn't do something on Day 1 doesn't mean it's not a priority," Edward Mills, managing director at Raymond James, told American Banker.

Indeed, Chopra has cleaned out his office, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. But his work continues, he said.

“I recognize that the president has the right to really put in place a new nominee … but until that time, I am discharging my oath to serve my term and we are very very busy,” Chopra told CNBC on Friday.

Chopra is serving a five-year term that runs through October 2026. But his agency was called out in November by Trump adviser Elon Musk as an example of a “duplicative” regulator.

Chopra on Friday acknowledged choosing a new CFPB chief is a challenge.

“It is a job where you face constant attacks and opposition from a well-funded lobby and group of big banks,” he said. “I am ready to pass the baton whenever someone is identified and I am ready to set them up for success.”  

How the FDIC fits in

Chopra and Hsu may have their secondary roles to thank for their continued service: The heads of the OCC and CFPB also serve on the board of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and tradition dictates that no more than three of the panel’s five members can be from the same political party.

Hsu, for one, may be a Democrat seat-warmer until it’s known whether Trump’s nominee for treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, will be confirmed. The Senate is set to vote on that at 5:30 p.m. Monday, according to The Hill. The OCC is an offshoot of the Treasury Department.

Chopra’s future appears a little muddier. Adding to the potential confusion, the Federal Trade Commission last week named Christopher Mufarrige as acting director of the agency’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. On title alone, that may raise a flag for any Trump advisers looking for role duplication – or an excuse to “delete” the CFPB, as Musk wrote on X, the social media platform he owns.

Some early post-election speculation centered on a push to dismantle the FDIC.

Tomas Philipson, a University of Chicago professor of public policy studies and former acting chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, spotlighted a proposal that would have let the Treasury Department insure bank deposits rather than the FDIC.

“There may be great value in downsizing or eliminating overlapping agencies while still keeping key underlying functions they serve,” Philipson told CNBC.

However, Brett House, an economics professor at Columbia Business School, said getting rid of the FDIC “would be a disaster for the U.S. economy.”

“Large banks may do fine without FDIC protections on their clients. But an end to federal insurance on them would be a serious drag on regional financial institutions that provide a major source of consumer lending and small-business financing,” House said.

Bessent, for his part, was asked, during his confirmation hearing this month, whether he thought the Treasury Department was well-suited to perform the FDIC’s functions.

“The statutory authority of the FDIC is distinct from that of the Department of the Treasury, and if confirmed, I look forward to working with the new leadership of the FDIC to promote the safety, soundness, and vibrancy of our banks,” Bessent wrote, according to American Banker. 

That’s just as well. Of any of the banking regulators, the FDIC appears the most prepared to forge ahead in a new administration – if only judging on the extensive list of priorities Acting Chair Travis Hill laid out last week.

‘Breaking eggs’

Another potential regulator consolidation is the prospect of combining the Securities and Exchange Commission with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Lee Reiners, an economic lecturing fellow at Duke University, pushed the merger in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, noting that consolidation of the two primary regulators that touch cryptocurrency – often with conflicting styles – would be “low-hanging fruit” in Musk’s effort to root out government redundancy. 

The Treasury Department explored an SEC-CFTC combo during Trump’s first term, concluding in a 2017 report that “merging the SEC and the CFTC would not appreciably improve on the current system.”

“If it doesn’t happen now, it’s fair to assume it’ll never happen,” Reiners told Bloomberg Law.

Hsu said the number of regulators in banking stems from customer choice. 

“You can have a national charter, you can have a state charter, you can be a state member bank, you could be a state non-member bank, you can have a holding company, or not have a holding company. Each of those choices leads to the need for these different agencies,” he told American Banker this month. “I think that that's part of the discussion: Is this number of choices serving the American people? 

“If not, maybe taking some of that away and rationalizing it makes sense,” he added. “Breaking eggs for the sake of breaking eggs may feel good, but it might not serve the American people well.”

Effect on regulation

Others may be less concerned with the regulator as with policy.

A group of lawyers wrote the incoming leadership of banking agencies, arguing that agencies must simplify the process of obtaining bank charters.

Current “bureaucratic inefficiencies” had led to a “nearly impenetrable barrier to entry,” the attorney group wrote Monday in a letter seen by Reuters, adding that regulators need to encourage new banks so competition can flourish. (The FDIC, notably, listed encouraging more de novo activity among its 15 priorities last week.)

Given Trump’s penchant for executive orders, the new administration may be trying to prioritize “low-hanging fruit,” too – and that may have limited effect on banking regulators. Regulation, by contrast, requires that affected clients be notified and given a chance to comment publicly, Austin Evers, a partner at the law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, told American Banker.

“Deregulation is, by definition, regulation, and that's going to take time,” Evers said.