The agencies originally proposed these guidelines in October, seeking to provide financial institutions with greater clarity regarding government oversight. This shift is part of a broader Trump administration initiative to overhaul how the federal government polices the banking sector. Regulatory leaders have argued that examiners must refocus their attention on core financial risks rather than penalizing lenders for minor administrative discrepancies.

While these two agencies have now solidified their approach, the Federal Reserve—which supervises many of the nation's largest institutions—has yet to issue a comparable proposal. The new definitions are intended to give examiners firm, transparent guidelines, marking a departure from the previous reliance on vague standards that left the definition of improper behavior to individual discretion.