The OCC looks to boards of directors in addition to senior management to set a tone at a bank that “encourages ethical and responsible behavior and demands individual accountability,” Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry said at an industry event in New York today. The board must “articulate what the institution stands for” and set boundaries of unacceptable behavior, he added.
“We don’t expect directors to manage the bank, but we do expect the board to look at high-level issues that relate to culture, from the compensation structure to how management deals with deviations from the standards the board has established,” Curry explained.
He added that the lengthy rulemaking on the Dodd-Frank Act’s incentive compensation provision will soon be complete. “This has been an exceedingly long rulemaking process, even if I understand the reasons, and I am working to see to it that we are nearing the end of the process,” he said.
