Bloomberg: Fed, OCC Use Outdated Criteria to Assess Bank Mergers, Senator Warren Says

US regulators in charge of evaluating bank mergers are "asleep at the wheel," especially given the looming task of considering Capital One Financial Corp.'s proposed purchase of Discover Financial Services, according to Senator Elizabeth Warren

The Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency should fall in line with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which has already finalized updates to its merger guidelines, and the Justice Department, which said it intends to follow a 2023 policy, the Massachusetts Democrat said in a letter to regulators.

"The Fed and the OCC's failures to act to meaningfully strengthen our nation’s bank merger review framework threaten the stability of our economy and the livelihoods of working families," Warren said in the letter. "Using a set of weak, decades-old rules to evaluate the massive Capital One-Discover deal, which was announced in February and would combine two of the nation’s largest credit card companies, would amount to regulatory malfeasance."

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