The new leading regulatory official at the Federal Reserve outlined a bold plan to review and relax a number of bank regulations and policy practices that she claimed were burdensome and superfluous.
The Fed will be reevaluating how it drafts regulations and oversees some of the biggest and most intricate banks in the country, according to Michelle Bowman, who was officially announced as the Fed’s Vice Chair for Supervision on Wednesday. She made the case in prepared remarks that the proliferation of regulations after the 2008 financial crisis calls for a reexamination.
This comes after a statement from Bowman on June 16, where she addressed various issues the Fed plans to combat and how to implement those initiatives.
“Today’s interagency announcement is a welcome first step in the efforts of the federal banking agencies to combat the increasing occurrence of fraud, particularly check fraud,” Bowman said. “Check fraud has grown substantially over the past several years, resulting in harm to banks, especially community banks, and the consumers and businesses who are the victims of fraud. While this has been a well-known problem for several years, efforts by regulators have been slow to advance, and seem to have done little to address this growing threat.
We need a comprehensive strategy to develop and implement an effective, coordinated approach that is focused on preventing payments fraud and assisting consumers, businesses, and supervised institutions. As Vice Chair for Supervision, I am committed to working together with a wide range of state and federal partners, including law enforcement, to address this issue. I look forward to reviewing the public feedback in response to the request for information.”
Vice Chair Paints Agenda Surrounding Bank Policies & Oversight
Bowman, a Fed governor since 2018, has long opposed attempts to regulate the banking industry more strictly. In her first comments after being confirmed to the Fed’s top regulatory position, she stated that the Fed will soon begin a number of initiatives to simplify oversight and loosen regulations, particularly in key areas that banks have long complained about.
“Our goal should not be to prevent banks from failing or even eliminate the risk that they will. Our goal should be to make banks safe to fail, meaning that they can be allowed to fail without threatening to destabilize the rest of the banking system,” Bowman said.
Changes to the Fed’s oversight of big banks, efforts to loosen some bank regulations, and an examination of potential reforms that may facilitate bank mergers are some of those initiatives.
About Michelle Bowman:
Michelle W. Bowman took office as the Vice Chair for Supervision of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on June 9, 2025, for a four-year term. Ms. Bowman has served as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System since taking office on November 26, 2018, to fill an unexpired term ending January 31, 2020. She was reappointed to the Board on January 23, 2020, and sworn in on January 30, 2020, for a term ending January 31, 2034.
Prior to her appointment to the Board, she served as the state bank commissioner of Kansas from January 2017 to November 2018. She also served as vice president of Farmers & Drovers Bank in Kansas from 2010 to 2017.
In addition to her experience in the banking industry, Ms. Bowman worked in Washington, D.C. for Senator Bob Dole of Kansas from 1995 to 1996 and served as a counsel to the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight between 1997 and 2002. In 2002, she became director of congressional and intergovernmental affairs at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. From 2003 to 2004, Bowman served as Deputy Assistant Secretary and policy advisor to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.
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