The news: The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) will no longer assess reputation risk in its bank examinations and will remove related references from its guidance and handbooks, per a recent press release. 

How we got here: The regulator believes this shift will help clarify that it does not influence banks’ business decisions.

Acting Comptroller Rodney E. Hood said in the press statement, “The OCC has never used reputation risk as a catch-all justification for supervisory action. Focusing future examination activities on more transparent risk areas improves public confidence in the OCC’s supervisory process and makes clear that the OCC has not and does not make business decisions for banks.”