Statement by Chairman Travis Hill on the Proposal to Reform the FDIC’s Information Disclosure Rules

The FDIC has long permitted supervised institutions to disclose confidential information to certain third parties, but only with prior approval from the FDIC. The process of obtaining FDIC approval can be time consuming and burdensome both for the institution making the request and the FDIC, while the ability to share information with certain parties in a timely manner can often be critical to informing important business decisions.

Today's proposal would enable institutions to share confidential information without prior approval with certain categories of third parties, such as attorneys, accountants, affiliates, consultants, a limited number of potential merger partners, and certain service providers, among others, under certain conditions. Sharing information with these types of partners is, for the most part, routinely approved by the FDIC today and would present minimal risk to institutions or the banking system.

The proposal also includes a number of other changes to our information disclosure rules, including with respect to disclosure of information under the Freedom of Information Act, the FDIC's own disclosure of its confidential information, and disclosure of confidential FDIC information in certain legal proceedings.

I would like to thank the staff for their work on the proposal and look forward to reviewing the comments.