Trump advisers seek to shrink or eliminate bank regulators, WSJ reports

(Reuters) -U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is exploring ways to significantly reduce, merge, or even eliminate the top bank regulators in Washington, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday citing people familiar with the matter.

Trump advisers and officials from the newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) inquired about the possibility of abolishing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC), according to the newspaper.

Advisers have asked the nominees under consideration for the FDIC, as well as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, if deposit insurance could be absorbed into the Treasury Department, the Journal said adding that any proposal to eliminate the FDIC or any agency would require congressional action.

Trump’s transition team, FDIC, OCC, and the Treasury department did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

Trump has named two entrepreneurs – Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to the task force that plans a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. government, which spent $6.8 trillion in the most recent fiscal year.

Musk and Ramaswamy will co-lead DOGE, an entity Trump indicated will operate outside the confines of government.

Potential bank regulator nominees have interviewed with Treasury Secretary pick Scott Bessent and the new DOGE department, the report said.

Billionaire Elon Musk, tasked with slashing government costs by Trump last month, called for the elimination of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, further amplifying the influence of the world’s richest man, who donated millions of dollars to helping Trump get elected.

Trump advisers and potential nominees have also discussed plans to either combine or otherwise restructure the main federal bank regulators: the FDIC, OCC and the Federal Reserve, the WSJ report added.

In a separate plan that has been floated with the transition team, the FDIC, OCC and parts of the Fed would not merge but only one of them would continue to regulate banks, the newspaper said citing one person familiar with the matter adding that the other agencies would keep only non-regulatory staff.

At the CFPB, consumer-education jobs could replace regulatory and supervisory jobs, the report said.

The Journal further added that in any plan, significant job cuts are likely and Trump is expected to reinstate an executive order that made some federal workers easier to dismiss, known as Schedule F. Stricter return-to-office policies that could prompt workers to leave are also being discussed.

(Reporting by Rajveer Singh Pardesi, Mrinmay Dey and Angela Christy M in Bengaluru; Editing by Sandra Maler)