Biden to tap big-bank critic Omarova to head OCC - Bloomberg News

[September 23, 2021]  (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden plans to nominate Saule Omarova, a law professor who has criticized cryptocurrencies and advocated for the government to have a much bigger role in banking, to run the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday.

Omarova will be tapped to run the OCC as soon as this week, Bloomberg reported, citing three people familiar with the nomination process. If confirmed, she would be the first woman to become the full-fledged leader of the agency, the report added.

The White House did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

A native of Kazakhstan, Omarova has been a professor at Cornell University Law School since 2014, according to her LinkedIn profile. In 2006-07, she was a special adviser for regulatory policy to the U.S. Department of the Treasury under former President George W. Bush.

Democrats have fought over the best leader for the OCC, the agency that regulates the country's large banks. Former Treasury official Michael Barr and law professor Mehrsa Baradaran were also reported to be under consideration for the role before being dropped by the Biden administration.

(Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru and Michelle Price in Washington; Editing by Anil D'Silva)

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