Main Street Act

Rewrites community-bank rules — lower capital ratios, lighter exams, and the big-bank oversight line jumping from $250 to $370 billion.

The details

Community banks and credit unions would get the biggest rewrite of their regulatory rulebook since 2018. Banks using the simplified community-bank capital measure could hold less capital (the required ratio band drops from 8–10% to 6–9%, and eligibility rises to $15 billion in assets), new banks would get a three-year phase-in on capital rules, and healthy institutions under $6 billion would face lighter, less frequent examinations. Dozens of dollar thresholds across banking law would jump — including the $250 billion line that triggers stricter big-bank oversight, which rises to $370 billion — and then rise automatically with GDP every five years. Regulators could no longer weigh competition or monopoly effects when approving mergers that create banks under $10 billion, and merger applications would be automatically approved if agencies miss a 120-day deadline. Banks would gain new ways to challenge their regulators: an independent review board that can overturn examiner findings, the option to take enforcement cases to federal court instead of agency judges, and a ban on supervisors using “reputational risk.” Responding to the 2023 bank failures, the FDIC could accept a costlier bid for a failed bank to avoid selling it to the largest banking giants, and after any systemic-risk rescue regulators would have to publish the failed bank's exam records along with an accounting of their own supervisory shortcomings.