The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
Summary
Created by the National Currency Act of 1863 and the National Bank Act of 1864, the OCC ran on $1,373.3 million in FY2025 program costs and 3,138 employees -- about $4.02 per U.S. resident -- to charter, regulate, and supervise 1,010 national banks and federal savings associations holding $16.7 trillion in assets.
What is this organization?
What does it do?
The OCC charters, regulates, and supervises the nation's federal banking system. As of September 30, 2025, that system comprised 1,010 institutions -- 730 national banks, 231 federal savings associations, and 49 federal branches and agencies of foreign banks -- holding $16.7 trillion in assets, 67% of all U.S. bank assets. In FY2025 the OCC processed 834 corporate and licensing applications, approving 761 outright and 19 conditionally with zero denials, and brought 25 formal enforcement actions against banks, more than half addressing oversight, strategic, capital-planning, or liquidity-risk failures.
What does it cost to run — money and people?
Total program costs for FY2025 were $1,373.3 million -- $1,218.4 million to supervise, $130.7 million to regulate, and $24.2 million to charter banks -- run by 3,138 OCC employees, 66% of them bank examiners. As a non-appropriated federal agency, the OCC funds itself almost entirely from semiannual bank assessments ($1,229.2 million of $1,306.7 million FY2025 revenue) rather than congressional appropriations. Against the Census Bureau's 341.8 million Vintage 2025 population estimate⧉, that works out to $4.02 per U.S. resident.
View data as table
| Supervise | 1,218.4 |
|---|---|
| Regulate | 130.7 |
| Charter | 24.2 |
Why is it good for society?
The mechanism is on-site examination: OCC examiners score every bank on the CAMELS scale -- capital, assets, management, earnings, liquidity, market-risk sensitivity -- and can force corrective action before failure. The share of banks rated 1 or 2 slipped from 96% in FY2022 to 93% in FY2025, and the agency followed with 25 formal enforcement actions, including a $450 million penalty collected from a national bank in October 2024. Without that loop, a bank's deteriorating capital or liquidity position surfaces only when depositors notice -- or run.
- The OCC's FY2025 program costs ($1,373.3M) are funded 94.1% by semiannual bank assessments, not congressional appropriations -- the $4.02-per-resident figure is an accounting allocation, not a bill any resident is sent.
- The share of OCC-supervised banks with a top-tier CAMELS rating slipped from 96% (FY2022) to 93% (FY2025), against a 90% floor target -- the agency still cleared its own target, and FY2025's 25 formal enforcement actions included a $450 million civil money penalty against a national bank, collected that October.
Your handles.* File a complaint about a national bank or federal savings association through HelpWithMyBank.gov. Comment on a pending OCC rulemaking through the OCC's Proposed Issuances docket via Regulations.gov. Request OCC records through its FOIA process.
Sources(2) ▾
- Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, 2025 Annual Report -- Promoting a Safe, Sound, and Fair Federal Banking System (2026-01-05) — The OCC's own FY2025 Annual Report to Congress ( ending September 30, 2025; independent auditor's report dated January 5, 2026) -- the primary source for every fact in this entry: the agency's founding statute (Note 1), the institution/asset counts it supervises, corporate-licensing and enforcement-action activity, its audited program costs and staffing, and its own CAMELS/enforcement performance data. occ.gov · original document
- U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Population Growth Slows Due to Historic Decline in Net International Migration (Vintage 2025 national population estimates) (2026-01-27) — Census Bureau's own Vintage 2025 national population estimate (341.8 million as of July 1, 2025) -- the per-resident denominator for this entry's cost-per-person KPI. census.gov direct-fetches 403 in this environment, so this Wayback capture (already validated by an earlier good-citizen entry) is cited directly. census.gov · original document
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The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is a bureau of the U.S. Treasury Department. Congress created it through the National Currency Act of 1863, rewritten and reenacted as the National Bank Act of 1864, authorizing the OCC to supervise national banks and regulate their lending and investment activities. The President appoints the Comptroller of the Currency to a five-year term; the Comptroller also sits on the 's board and the Financial Stability Oversight Council. Dodd-Frank folded federal savings association supervision into the OCC in 2010.