Sponsors (34)
This bill leans toward easing burdens, increasing predictability, and boosting transparency for banks—especially smaller institutions—while accelerating approvals and limiting some supervisory tools, a trade‑off that may lower costs and preserve local banking but increases litigation, administrative costs, and potential risks to competition, depositor safety, and taxpayers.
Small banks, credit unions, and their customers will face lighter, more tailored supervision and reporting, shorter, predictable exam and application timelines, and faster approval of qualifying mergers—reducing compliance costs and helping preserve local banking services.
Banks, credit unions, and charter applicants will gain clearer, objective supervisory criteria, published scoring rules, formal appeals/review rights and district-court hearing options, and time‑bound exam processes—improving procedural fairness and predictability.
Depositors, small businesses, and the broader financial system may get stronger liquidity backstops and reduced discount-window stigma through expanded access, transparency, and operational improvements at the Fed, lowering risks of runs and systemic stress.
Taxpayers and depositors could face greater costs and losses because the FDIC may select resolutions that cost the Deposit Insurance Fund more than the least‑cost option, and the Federal Reserve surplus cap reduction may lower reserves available to absorb shocks.
Broader weakening of supervision: raising asset thresholds, imposing tailoring that can lighten oversight, constraints on examiner discretion (including making some rules public) and accelerated statutory deadlines risk delaying or blunting early regulatory action and increasing systemic and depositor risk.
Consumers and small businesses may face reduced competition and higher prices or worse service because many small‑bank mergers are fast‑tracked with limited competition review and restrictions that can reduce the pool of eligible bidders for failed-bank acquisitions.
Based on analysis of 9 sections of legislative text.
Reforms federal bank supervision and chartering rules, mandates objective CAMELS criteria, tailors rulemaking to institution risk, alters merger review for small banks, and adds FDIC resolution flexibility and agency reporting requirements.
Official title: Main Street Act
Introduced January 7, 2026 by French Hill · Last progress July 22, 2026
Shortens certain chartering timelines, requires annual public reporting on charter and application processing, and conditions a temporary community-bank charter authority on a 2031 safety-and-soundness review. It changes how federal banking regulators write and apply rules by requiring risk-based tailoring, disclosure of tailoring decisions, and more frequent regulatory reviews. The bill also mandates objective reforms to CAMELS ratings, narrows certain supervisory practices, expands judicial election options in NCUA enforcement actions, directs a Federal Reserve review of discount window operations, and creates a new FDIC flexibility to choose non‑least‑cost resolutions in limited cases to limit concentration. The measure adds multiple studies and reporting deadlines for agencies (including GAO and interagency reports), raises statutory experience requirements and term limits for FDIC board members, adjusts merger review standards for smaller banks, extends merchant‑banking holding periods, and requires a range of rulemaking, disclosure, and implementation timelines aimed at reducing regulatory burden and increasing transparency for depository institutions and regulators.