March 20, 2009

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp is seeking to make large bank holding companies pay their fair share of fees through special systemic risk assessments, an FDIC official told lawmakers on Thursday.The agency also asked Congress to remove rules that now prevent the FDIC from boosting its deposit insurance fund during good economic times.Arthur Murton, the FDIC director of insurance and research, told a Senate Banking subcommittee that the agency is now required to assess fees on the entire U.S.

Banking industry instead of targeting the biggest institutions such as bank holding companies supervised by other federal regulators.The FDIC would prefer to more equitably distribute fees by charging systemic risk fees on bank holding companies to recover losses to its insurance fund, Murton said.It currently can charge fees to insured depository banks, but not to their holding companies.