Bank Failure Prevention Act of 2025

The bill would amend three federal banking statutes to restructure how the Federal Reserve Board and other responsible agencies review merger and acquisition applications for bank holding companies, savings and loan holding companies, and insured depository institutions. Agencies would be required to notify applicants within 30 days of receipt whether their application record is complete or what additional information is needed — with a 30-day extension allowed for complex applications. If the applicant responds to a request for more information, the record would be deemed complete unless the agency identifies material deficiencies and gives detailed notice within 30 days. Most significantly, agencies would face a hard 90-day deadline to grant or deny an application from the date of initial submission — regardless of whether the record was ever deemed complete — and any application not decided in time would be automatically deemed granted.

The bill would not change the substantive criteria regulators use to evaluate whether a merger is in the public interest. It leaves in place existing competitive and financial-condition review standards; its operative effect is entirely on process: notice timing, completeness determinations, and the overall decision deadline. Applicants could request a deadline extension of up to 30 additional days, but regulators could not extend the deadline on their own initiative.

Bank holding companies, savings and loan holding companies, and insured depository institutions seeking regulatory approval for mergers or acquisitions. The Federal Reserve Board and other responsible banking agencies (such as the FDIC) face new procedural requirements. Third parties — such as advocacy groups or community organizations — that currently submit information during the review process would be excluded from influencing completeness determinations.

Banking institutions awaiting merger approval would face greater certainty about timelines, reducing the risk of indefinite delays. The automatic-approval rule if agencies miss the deadline adds real enforcement teeth. Third parties that have historically influenced the review process through submitted reports or recommendations would lose that formal channel for affecting whether a record is deemed complete, shifting significant procedural leverage to applicants.

The changes would be largely self-executing upon enactment: the Federal Reserve Board and other responsible agencies would need to adjust internal intake and review workflows to meet the new 30-day completeness-notice window and the 90-day hard decision deadline. No rulemaking is required. Agencies would need to track submission dates carefully given the automatic-approval consequence for missed deadlines. Applicants must formally request any deadline extension; agencies cannot grant extensions unilaterally.