Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation director Jeremiah Norton gave President Obama notice Friday that he will be stepping down, telling him in a letter that he would leave the agency June 5.
Replacing Norton on the five-member board could prove difficult for Obama, who has had trouble getting financial regulatory nominees through Senate confirmation.
Norton hinted at problems with the nominations process in his letter, writing, “I believe that it is an appropriate time to conclude my service as I am now approaching nearly two years since the expiration of my term.”
Before joining the five-member board of the FDIC in 2012, Norton was an executive director at J.P. Morgan Securities. He had previously been a staffer for Ed Royce, a Republican congressman representing California.
The FDIC, with the Federal Reserve and Treasury, is one of the agencies that oversees the banking sector.
Obama’s most recent nominee to a top post among financial regulators was Antonio Weiss to be the third-ranking official at the Treasury. Weiss bowed out of consideration for the job in January after sustained and vocal opposition from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and other liberals who objected to someone with his Wall Street background in a banking oversight post. Weiss, who then joined the Treasury in a non-confirmed role, previously was an investment banker at Lazard.
Despite his background in finance and in the Republican Party, Norton is one of the regulators favored by outside critics of Wall Street practices.
