FDIC Proposes Sweeping Changes to Bank Resolution Planning Requirements

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”) has moved to sharply scale back the insured depository institution (“IDI”) resolution planning regime it had previously expanded in the wake of the 2023 bank failures by approving, on June 25, 2026, a notice of proposed rulemaking to revise its IDI resolution plan submission requirements (the “Resolution Plan NPR” or the “proposal”).  The proposed changes are substantial: they would codify but also go far beyond the FDIC’s frequently asked questions (“FAQs”) that were issued to already narrow the in-effect IDI resolution planning rule (the “IDI Rule”).  In sum, the proposal would narrow the scope of IDIs subject to resolution planning requirements (“CIDIs”) by eliminating coverage for institutions between $50 billion and $100 billion in assets that currently submit informational filings, eliminate interim supplements and public sections, remove credibility determinations and capabilities testing, and substantially reduce content requirements to focus on operational information the FDIC views as most directly supporting resolution readiness. 

In the sections that follow, we recap how the current regime took shape, break down what the proposal would change, situate it alongside the FDIC’s companion assessment proposal, and consider what’s next.

Background on Resolution Planning

The FDIC first released the IDI Rule in 2012, following the global financial crisis, “to enable the FDIC to perform its resolution functions most efficiently through extensive planning in cooperation with the CIDI and to enhance its ability to evaluate potential loss severity if an institution fails.”  This IDI-level requirement sits alongside the Title I “living will” regime under Section 165(d) of the Dodd-Frank Act—which is not being revised at this time—under which large bank holding companies must plan for their own rapid and orderly resolution in bankruptcy.

After the FDIC provided substantial supervisory relief under the IDI Rule during the first Trump administration (including a moratorium on requisite plan submissions), a trio of significant bank failures in 2023—Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank—once again highlighted the importance of advance operational planning.  Accordingly, on June 20, 2024, the FDIC adopted the revised (and current) IDI Rule, introducing new content requirements, capabilities testing, and an enhanced credibility standard. 

Under the second Trump administration, however, the FDIC revisited its approach to the IDI Rule once more in an effort to “focus on the information most relevant to conducting an effective resolution and to reduce burden on CIDIs.”  On April 18, 2025, the FDIC issued FAQs, which waived several resolution plan submission content requirements, including those that required certain CIDIs to specify a detailed failure scenario or generate quantitative valuation estimates of an IDI franchise. On December 31, 2025, the FDIC announced its plans to propose changes to the IDI Rule in 2026, stating its intention to codify the content requirement exemptions set out in the April 2025 FAQs as well as to eliminate other requirements that “might distract” from the FDIC’s ability to execute a “rapid, low-cost” failed bank resolution.

Key components of the Resolution Plan NPR: 

The Resolution Plan NPR would reshape the IDI resolution planning regime yet again by shifting the focus away from lengthy, bank-authored strategic plans and toward the streamlined operational information the FDIC says it needs to resolve a failed institution quickly.  Below we summarize the key components of the proposed changes.

• Scope.  The Resolution Plan NPR would raise the dollar threshold for determining whether an IDI is subject to the IDI Rule from $50 billion to $100 billion in total assets and provide for automatic future adjustments (every three years) pursuant to an indexing methodology to account for future inflation.  If finalized, the proposal would result in IDIs that are presently Group B CIDIs no longer being subject to the IDI Rule.  The FDIC estimates that 16 of 48 CIDIs subject to the current IDI Rule would no longer be covered if the proposal is finalized.
• Plan submission cycle.  All CIDIs, including those affiliated with U.S. global systemically important banks (“GSIBs”), would be subject to a three-year filing cycle, and interim supplements would be eliminated entirely.  The proposal would implement a transition under which initial resolution submissions would be due no earlier than 270 days after a final rule’s effective date, with the proposal’s “submission date” provision setting out the process for determining the initial filing date for any IDI that is a CIDI as of that date.  We note that, under the proposal, CIDI affiliates of U.S. GSIBs are expected to have overlapping IDI and Title I resolution plan submissions every six years.
• Interim information filings.  Between submissions, instead of interim supplements, CIDIs would be expected to provide information on any material merger, acquisition or disposition of assets, or similar transaction or fundamental change to the CIDI’s organizational structure, core business lines, size, or complexity, via a notice of extraordinary event filing.  Such a filing must take place no later than 45 days after such an event.
• Streamlining “content requirements.”
  • The Resolution Plan NPR would generally eliminate requirements to provide extensive narrative and analysis, and would, according to the agency, eliminate “more than half of the current rule’s ‘content requirements,’” including, for example:
    • The “executive summary,” replacing it with a “summary of other updates since prior submission,” which would include a description of each material change to the CIDI since the prior resolution plan submission that has not already been addressed in a notice of extraordinary event, and a description of the changes to the CIDI’s previously submitted resolution submission resulting from any change in law, regulation, or guidance;
    • Requirements focused on resolution-related hypothetical analyses and content (e.g., development of a strategy and valuation analysis, adoption of a failure scenario);
    • Additional “CIDI-generated resolution analyses and recommendations regarding optionality, challenges, and mitigating actions in resolution relevant to the FDIC’s resolution responsibilities” (e.g., identifying franchise components that can be separated/marketed in resolution, economic impacts of a CIDI’s resolution, impact of extraordinary events on resolution);
    • “Descriptions of the CIDI’s processes and procedures” in areas such as critical services, capital structure and funding sources, communications, corporate governance, and reporting on contingency planning and similar exercises; and
    • Expectations for, and descriptions of, the CIDI’s capabilities.
  • No capabilities testing or credibility determinations.  The Resolution Plan NPR would eliminate capabilities testing, credibility determinations, and the agency’s current approach to resolution plan feedback. Under the proposal, the FDIC would not require extensive and structured direct engagement with CIDI staff; rather, engagement would be focused on addressing specific questions related to the information contained in each CIDI’s submission.
  • No public section.  The Resolution Plan NPR would eliminate the requirement to submit a public section.
• No board approval requirement.  Under the proposal, a CIDI’s board of directors would no longer need to approve a CIDI’s resolution submission prior to filing it with the FDIC.
• Revise certain informational requirements.  The Resolution Plan NPR would revise certain key informational requirements (e.g., deposits, other financial information) as well as content requirements to enable the FDIC to obtain “the most pertinent information” on, for example, a CIDI’s interconnections, material loan portfolios, and digital services and products.
• New requirements.  The Resolution Plan NPR would also add certain “new aspects” (some of which serve to clarify ambiguities in the existing rule) to some content requirements for CIDI resolution plan submissions “to enhance the FDIC’s ability to plan and execute a resolution,” including:
  • Information on the CIDI’s organization (e.g., organizational chart, information about non-controlling interests in certain businesses (such as minority investments in limited liability companies and partnerships), involvement in joint ventures, special purpose vehicles, etc.);
  • A mapping of the CIDI’s information technology architecture and a detailed inventory and description of the key management information systems and applications (including the core processors for deposit and loan data, and systems and applications for risk management, accounting, and financial and regulatory reporting);
  • Deposit information important for resolution execution (e.g., list of deposit products, source of deposits and manner in which deposits are identified on the CIDI’s systems and records, sweep account information and relationships, and any controls to restrict funds movement to or from accounts in foreign branches);
  • Information on whether any key personnel are “dual-hatted” (i.e., performing roles at both the CIDI and an affiliate of the CIDI), and identification of any CIDI-sponsored work authorizations and the associated jurisdictions that are located outside of the United States; and
  • Information to understand the risks managed using qualified financial contracts (“QFCs”), particularly QFC activity conducted by the CIDI’s subsidiaries, including, for example:
    • How such QFCs are used in the provision of services to customers or in the management of risk, including how the CIDI and its subsidiaries offset position risks from such contracts;
    • The types of QFCs utilized by each core business line and the business purpose or risk management purpose of such QFCs;
    • Whether the CIDI or any of its subsidiaries enter into QFCs that are related to loans to customers made by any affiliate of the CIDI (other than any subsidiary of the CIDI) and, if so, the types of such QFCs;
    • The types of counterparties with which the CIDI and its subsidiaries have QFCs; and
    • Identifying the booking models used by a CIDI’s subsidiaries, as well as by the CIDI, to support the marketing and management of risk from QFCs.
• Superseding prior guidance.  If the Resolution Plan NPR is adopted, the rulemaking would supersede all prior FDIC guidance, FAQs, and feedback related to the current IDI Rule.

Additional Agency Moves to Enhance IDIs’ Resolution Readiness

Alongside the Resolution Plan NPR, the FDIC also proposed certain amendments to its deposit-insurance assessment regulations (the “Assessments NPR”).  In what Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan V. Gould (who sits on the FDIC Board) described as a “creative” move, the Assessments NPR proposes a financial incentive for IDIs to implement certain operational resolution-readiness measures.  In particular, the Assessments NPR would establish a downward resolution readiness adjustment (“RRA”) to deposit insurance assessment rates for large and highly complex IDIs that elect to participate, including 0.5 basis points for passing voluntary virtual data room testing and 0.5 basis points for providing prescribed data access.  FDIC Chairman Travis Hill explained that banks opting into the RRA “are expected to cost the FDIC less upon failure, thus justifying a downward adjustment to premiums.” 

The Bigger Picture & What’s Next

The Resolution Plan NPR in essence codifies the FDIC’s move towards reducing the burdens of resolution planning for financial institutions while maximizing the FDIC’s own resolution execution capabilities.  In his statement in connection with the agency’s June 25 releases, Chairman Hill noted that he has “long been critical of the way the FDIC has historically approached resolution planning” and, earlier that month, stated that he is “skeptical of the value of requiring institutions to prepare lengthy narrative plans discussing proposed resolution strategies and hypothetical failure scenarios.”  Accordingly, Chairman Hill indicated that he supports the Resolution Plan NPR because it would “meaningfully” adjust the FDIC’s approach to IDI resolution submissions “by substantially streamlining filing requirements to focus on the operational information most relevant for the FDIC.”

Comptroller Gould supported the proposal but stated that it “does not fully address [his] concerns.”  He encouraged comments on “what more should be done, including whether specific information requirements – such as those targeting digital asset activities – are warranted and whether they might be used by a future Administration to chilling effect or otherwise be unnecessary.”  These statements echo Comptroller Gould’s remarks at the American Bar Association Banking Law Committee’s meeting earlier this year, in which he expressed broader skepticism about the “legal and conceptual underpinning of CIDI Plans.” 

If adopted, the FDIC expects the Resolution Plan NPR to result in substantial compliance cost savings due to the increase in threshold, the removal of the interim supplement, and the streamlined content requirements.  In addition, the Resolution Plan NPR is expected to reduce burden for the CIDIs that are affiliated with U.S. GSIBs by adjusting the filing frequency from once every two years to once every three years.  Altogether, the FDIC estimates that the Resolution Plan NPR would result in an aggregate cost reduction of approximately $67.8 million. 

Comments on the Resolution Plan NPR as well as the Assessments NPR are due August 31, 2026; the Assessments NPR, which effectively prices resolution readiness into deposit insurance premiums for the first time, is likely to be an important area for public comment.  In the meantime, the FDIC Board approved an exemption from filing requirements in October 2026 and in 2027 for all CIDIs subject to the current IDI Rule.

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We will continue to monitor developments in this area and provide updates as warranted. 

This post was written with the assistance of Hoang Nguyen

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