H.R. 6551: New BANK Act of 2025

The New BANK Act of 2025 is a transparency bill aimed at the front door of the banking system. It does not change the legal standards for approving a new bank, credit union, holding company, or deposit insurance application. Instead, it tells federal regulators to publish annual scorecards showing how many applications they received, what happened to them, and how long decisions took.

The main idea is simple: if lawmakers, entrepreneurs, and the public can see where applications are slowing down, they can better judge whether regulators are being efficient, consistent, or overly cautious. The bill covers several agencies — the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the National Credit Union Administration, the Federal Reserve, and the FDIC — and it also pushes for a joint report on state-chartered institutions. That would give a broader picture of where new financial institutions are getting approved and where they are struggling.

Supporters are likely to argue that this is basic accountability. If very few new banks are being created, or if approvals take too long, annual reporting could help identify patterns without weakening safety rules. Requiring mean and median approval times is especially useful because it can show whether a few very delayed applications are skewing the system or whether long waits are common.

Still, the bill is mostly about visibility, not reform. Regulators would have to report common reasons for denials, withdrawals, and expired or inactive applications only "to the extent practicable," which gives them flexibility and may limit how specific the reports become. And because the bill does not set deadlines, create appeals, or ease approval standards, its real effect depends on whether public reporting creates enough pressure to change agency behavior.