Two massive developments late last week took a firm grip over the banking regulatory sphere:

• the approval of the Capital One-Discover merger by the Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; and
• the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s signal that it would de-emphasize its oversight on non-depository institutions and shift resources away from enforcement and supervision that could be done by states.

The latter blew up even further when, within a day, the CFPB used its re-prioritization to try to fire 90% of its workforce – an attempt halted Friday by a court order.

It may be easy, then, for less dramatic shifts in regulation to be lost in the shuffle. The OCC, for example, said Wednesday it would combine its supervision function for large banks with that for midsize and community banks, to create a single bank supervision and examination office.

The move, which takes effect in June, will “allow for the seamless sharing of expertise and resources to address bank-specific issues or novel needs and provides opportunities for career development and progression for the agency’s entire examination workforce,” the OCC said.

It also accomplishes a long-running Trump administration goal to streamline headcounts – if only, at first, at the management level.

Greg Coleman, senior deputy comptroller for large bank supervision, will assume responsibility for the combined office. Meanwhile, Beverly Cole, the 43-year veteran in charge of the midsize and community bank supervision office, will retire in May.

The OCC will also reinstate the office of the chief national bank examiner, which will include the agency’s divisions of bank supervision policy, and supervision risk and analysis.

As with the bank supervision and examination reorganization, the official leading one of the subordinate divisions will move up; the other, out.

Jay Gallagher, the senior deputy comptroller for supervision risk and analysis, will lead the chief national bank examiner office. That means Grovetta Gardineer, who now leads the bank supervision policy division, will retire in May. Gardineer is a 14-year veteran of the OCC, but has logged 37 years of federal service, including 19 as an attorney for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., according to her LinkedIn profile.

In both office combinations, the OCC loses a senior woman of color in a leadership role in favor of a similarly senior White man – which may or may not be relevant, against the backdrop of a Trump administration that has a track record of firing Black and women leaders (see, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff and top naval officer) and de-emphasized diversity for diversity’s sake.

In a third move Wednesday, the OCC gave higher standing to its Information Technology and Security function. The leader of that office, in June, will be named to a new senior deputy comptroller role and will serve as a member of the OCC’s executive committee, the agency said.