FDIC Supervisory Appeals Office Is Live: The 60-Day Bank Exam Window to Calendar Now

TL;DR

• The FDIC supervisory appeals office became operational on August 4, 2026, replacing the Supervision Appeals Review Committee as the final internal review level for eligible exam determinations.
• An FDIC-supervised bank generally has 60 calendar days after receiving a report of examination or other written determination to seek Division Director review, then 30 calendar days to appeal an unfavorable Division decision.
• CAMELS and consumer-compliance ratings, certain violations, loan classifications, MRAs, MRBAs, and informal enforcement decisions can qualify. Formal enforcement actions themselves do not.
• Treat the appeal as an evidence case, not a complaint letter. The bank carries the burden, and fixes completed after the determination do not prove that the original determination was wrong.

The FDIC supervisory appeals office is now open for business. If your bank just received a ratings downgrade, disputed loan classification, MRA, or informal enforcement action, the practical change is simple: there is now an independent final review panel—but the bank still has to build the case on a short clock.

On August 4, the FDIC announced that its Office of Supervisory Appeals is fully operational. The revised appeal guidelines approved in January took effect the same day. The Office replaces the Supervision Appeals Review Committee, or SARC, and sits outside the FDIC divisions that make supervisory determinations.

That independence matters. It does not make the process forgiving.

The bank carries the burden of proof. It must first ask the relevant Division Director to review the determination. Most important, the Office evaluates the facts as they existed when the determination was made. A beautiful remediation package completed three weeks later may help close the finding, but it does not establish that the original finding was unsupported.

That distinction is where regulatory-relations teams can save—or waste—the 60-day window.

What changed when the FDIC supervisory appeals office went live?

The August 4 launch turned a January policy decision into an operating process. According to FDIC Financial Institution Letter FIL-46-2026, the new Office:

• is independent of the divisions that make supervisory determinations;
• serves as the final internal review level after Division Director review;
• uses three-person panels with at least one reviewer who has bank-supervisory experience and at least one with industry experience;
• makes its own determination without deferring to either the bank or supervisory staff; and
• expands appeal rights in certain situations involving proposed or pending enforcement actions.

The FDIC appointed Tim Ayala, John Conneely, and Duke Sheow as the first reviewing officials. Their backgrounds span FDIC examinations, complex-institution supervision, bank risk leadership, regulatory relations, and private-sector advisory work. The Office’s own page describes it as a standalone office whose reviewers’ sole responsibility is adjudicating supervisory appeals.

This is not the first attempt at this structure. The final guidelines published at 91 Federal Register 3184 explain that the FDIC created an independent office in 2021, restored SARC in 2022 before that office decided an appeal, and approved the current model in January 2026. The practical news on August 4 is that the panel now exists and the revised procedures are effective.

What can a bank appeal?

The phrase material supervisory determination is broader than a composite rating. The final guidelines list the following categories, among others:

The detailed eligibility language matters. For example, a disputed loan classification generally must exceed 10% of the institution’s total capital, individually or in aggregate. A violation must have the type of consequence described in the guidelines; not every examiner comment becomes an appealable determination.

If the dispute is an MRA, keep remediation running while the appeal decision is evaluated. An appeal is not a substitute for the MRA remediation playbook, and stopping corrective work without an approved stay can create a second problem.

What is not appealable?

The guidelines exclude several categories, including:

• the appointment of a conservator or receiver and resolution-related decisions;
• the decision to take prompt corrective action, although qualifying underlying determinations may be appealable;
• matters with another appeal procedure, such as deposit-insurance assessment calculations; and
• formal enforcement actions and decisions.

The enforcement boundary is more nuanced than “anything near an order is blocked.” Certain facts underlying a proposed or pending formal action can become appealable if the FDIC does not advance that action within specified periods. Those provisions include different rules for unsafe-or-unsound-practice cases, AML/CFT or sanctions matters, requested tolling agreements, draft consent orders, and written rejection of a proposed order.

That is counsel territory. The operational job for compliance is to preserve the notice date, the issues covered, each FDIC communication, and the enforcement timeline so counsel is not reconstructing it from inboxes on day 58.

The two-stage FDIC appeal clock

The process starts before the new Office sees anything.

The 60-day filing is not just a reservation of rights. The guidelines require a detailed description of the dispute, surrounding circumstances, the bank’s position, supporting legal or policy authority, and an explanation of how the outcome materially affects the institution. The filing must also state that the board or senior management considered the merits and authorized it. If senior management authorizes the request, the board must be informed before filing and kept informed afterward.

If the bank later appeals to the Office, it generally cannot introduce an issue it did not first submit to the Division Director. New evidence is also generally excluded unless the panel permits it and gives the Division Director time to respond.

The first submission therefore needs to be complete enough to survive the second stage.

The evidence mistake that will sink a defensible appeal

The Office reviews the facts and circumstances as they existed before or at the time of the determination—even if a relevant fact is discovered later. It does not consider later events or corrective action when deciding the merits.

That creates two parallel workstreams:

1. Merits record: What data, policy, control evidence, examiner communication, and governing authority existed when the FDIC made the determination?
2. Remediation record: What is the bank doing now to reduce risk, address any valid portion of the finding, and meet supervisory commitments?

Do not blend them into one chronology. If the appeal says, “The issue is fixed now,” it effectively concedes that the condition existed. If the bank’s position is narrower—perhaps the rating effect was disproportionate, the transaction population was incomplete, or the cited standard did not apply—say that and prove it with the contemporaneous record.

A workable appeal evidence index looks like this:

For a team already juggling findings, the issue management framework is useful here: keep action completion, control validation, and residual-risk closure separate. The same discipline prevents the appeal argument from becoming a vague status update.

What to do in the first 10 business days

Day 0-1: lock the clock. Regulatory relations should record the receipt date, calculate the 60-calendar-day deadline, and add internal decision gates at days 10, 20, and 35. Calendar-day means weekends count.

Day 1-3: define the appealable unit. General Counsel and the CRO or CCO should isolate the exact determination. Do not frame the dispute as “the exam was unfair.” Identify the rating, violation, classification, MRA, MRBA, or informal enforcement decision and map it to the guidelines.

Day 2-5: freeze the merits record. Create a read-only evidence folder representing what existed at the determination date. Preserve source-system extracts with query logic, file hashes if your evidence standard uses them, approvals, committee minutes, and examiner submissions. Keep later remediation in a different folder.

Day 4-7: run a red-team review. Assign someone who did not own the control to test the bank’s theory. Their job is to find unsupported leaps, missing populations, conflicting dates, and policy language that cuts the other way. A board does not need a guaranteed win; it needs an honest assessment of the case and consequences.

Day 7-10: prepare the decision memo. Give senior management or the board a short paper covering eligibility, deadline, disputed determination, best evidence, weak points, operational consequences, remediation status, counsel’s recommendation, and requested authorization.

For broader exam-response infrastructure—from request-list control to examiner meeting notes—use the regulatory exam preparation playbook. The appeal binder should be a controlled subset of that record, not a new story assembled after the report arrives.

So what?

The FDIC has created a more independent final review route, but independence does not rescue a late or thin filing. The bank must meet the first 60-day deadline, carry the burden, preserve the correct time-bound evidence, and obtain the required governance authorization.

Monday morning, ask regulatory relations for one report: every open FDIC material supervisory determination, its receipt date, appeal-eligibility assessment, internal decision owner, and evidence-folder link. If that report cannot be produced, the appeals process is not operational at your bank—even though it is now operational at the FDIC.

If exam findings are scattered across email and spreadsheets, the Issues Management Tracker & Template gives owners, deadlines, evidence, validation, and escalation a single controlled home.

FAQ

What is the FDIC Office of Supervisory Appeals?

It is the independent, standalone FDIC office that provides final internal review of eligible material supervisory determinations after Division Director review. It replaces SARC and uses panels that combine supervisory and industry experience.

How long does an FDIC-supervised bank have to appeal?

The bank generally has 60 calendar days after receiving the report of examination or other written determination to request Division Director review. It then generally has 30 calendar days after receiving the Division Director’s written decision to appeal to the Office.

Are MRAs and CAMELS ratings appealable?

The guidelines list CAMELS ratings, matters requiring attention, and matters requiring board attention among material supervisory determinations. Eligibility still depends on the specific determination, procedural posture, and exclusions in the guidelines.

Can a bank appeal a formal FDIC enforcement action?

Not through this process. Formal enforcement actions and decisions are excluded. The guidelines contain separate, fact-specific rules governing certain underlying determinations when an action is proposed or pending.

Should a bank stop remediation while an appeal is pending?

No automatic stay follows from filing an appeal. A bank may request a stay under the guidelines, but unless one is granted, remediation and supervisory obligations should continue. Keep the merits evidence separate from post-determination corrective work.