FDIC and the OCC finalized a joint rule defining "unsafe and unsound practices.".Under the new definition, a practice must threaten core financial stability or the Deposit Insurance Fund to trigger a Matter Requiring Attention (MRA). Minor process, policy, or documentation oversights will be treated as non-binding "supervisory observations," protecting bank leaders’ day-to-day business judgment. The FDIC is also replacing the terms Matters Requiring Board Attention and Supervisory Recommendation. This follows a review in which FDIC concluded that “a large majority of outstanding supervisory criticisms do not meet the standard under the [new] final rule and thus will be (or in some cases already have been) closed out.” In addition, a new OCC proposal would split compliance issues into "substantive" and "technical" categories, making it easier for technical slip-ups to be corrected without formal enforcement actions or mandated remediation programs.
