Highlights of a Study of Federal Supervision of State and National Banks [Vol. I]

Several congressional committees requested the evaluation of the effectiveness of the supervisory efforts of the three federal agencies involved in monitoring banking operations, because of the increasing instability of banks. The study objectives were to evaluate the agencies' efforts to identify unsound conditions and violations of laws in banks and cause bank management to take corrective actions. Examination reports and correspondence files on more than 900 banks supervised by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Reserve Board were examined, including 30 of 42 banks that had failed, 294 of 787 problem banks, and a general sample of 600 banks in the United States.