OCC’s Hsu advocates requiring mid-sized banks create ‘robust’ recovery plans

The acting head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) favors requiring more mid-sized U.S. banks to conduct the same rigorous recovery planning as the largest banks, part of a lesson learned from the collapse of three mid-sized banks in 2023.

Michael Hsu, in a speech delivered Monday at a European conference, said the issue of recovery planning helps mitigate the too-big-to-fail problem.

“Ensuring effective recovery planning at large banks is especially important given last year’s bank failures in the U.S. and Credit Suisse’s distress and eventual acquisition by UBS,” he said, referring to the fates of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank in the United States and Credit Suisse’s merger with its bigger Swiss rival.