Two of President Trump’s nominees for high-level banking positions will get a Senate confirmation hearing next week, the first step toward filling roles that will be critical in carrying out Trump’s deregulatory agenda.
Joseph Otting, the nominee to be the comptroller of the Currency, and Randal Quarles, tapped to be the vice chairman of supervision at the Federal Reserve, will get a joint hearing next Thursday, the Senate Banking Committee said Wednesday afternoon.
Quarles, a former private equity manager and George W. Bush Treasury official, would be responsible for coordinating regulatory activity at the central bank, a position that banks see as critical for carrying out regulatory relief. He also would vote on the Fed’s conduct of monetary policy. The position has not been filled since it was created in the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law.
Otting, a former banker, would be in charge of regulating national banks at the Office of the Comptroller of Currency. The position is being filled on an acting basis by a Trump appointee, Keith Noreika, who has aggressively pursued an agenda of lessening regulation in his short time at the agency.
The hearing is sure to feature Democratic criticism of OneWest, the regional bank of which Otting was formerly the CEO. OneWest was the bank created out of IndyMac, the bank that failed during the financial crisis and that was bought by Trump Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin with a group of investors. Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee tried to block Mnuchin’s confirmation to probe the bank’s record on foreclosures.
