Congress orders banking regulators to explain merger delays—publicly.
H.R. 6546 — Merger Process Review Act · Filed by Roger Williams (R-TX) · 2 cosponsors · Introduced Dec 9, 2025 · Reported out
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill requires the Inspector General of each federal banking regulator (the Federal Reserve, the Comptroller of the Currency, the FDIC, and the National Credit Union Administration) to review every 3 years how well their agency handles bank merger applications. The IG must measure processing times, identify delays, evaluate different review approaches, and assess the impact on safety, competition, and financial services availability. Each IG must report findings to Congress and publish them online; the regulator must then respond with a plan to implement recommendations.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core function is to establish recurring independent audits of federal banking regulators' merger review processes, with public reporting and agency response requirements. It is a transparency and accountability measure, not a substantive change to merger law itself.
What the text implies
- By measuring and publishing processing times, the bill may create implicit pressure on regulators to approve mergers faster, potentially at the expense of thorough safety and competition review if IG metrics become the primary performance benchmark.
- The requirement that regulators respond to IG recommendations 'to the extent such implementation is appropriate' gives agencies discretion to reject recommendations; the bill does not mandate compliance, only transparency of non-compliance.
The full analysis lists 3 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
insured depository institutions (banks and credit unions) seeking faster merger approvals; acquirers in pending or future merger transactions