America's bank regulator told examiners to judge AI by consequences, not sophistication.

Verified: we read Bulletin 2026-54 at occ.gov, including its title, date, audience and quoted sentences. It surfaced late. The bulletin is dated November 4 and Editions 074 and 075 covered that window without reaching it, so we card it under its own event date. The risk tiers and shutdown language sit in the attached guide, which would not open, and are marked reported.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which supervises every national bank in the United States, issued Bulletin 2026-54 on Wednesday November 4, 2026, titled "Super Intelligence: Supervisory Framework", release identifier OCC 2026-54. We read it at occ.gov. It is addressed to chief executive officers of all national banks, federal savings associations and federal branches and agencies, to department and division heads, and to all examining personnel. The framework is "designed to support OCC examiners in evaluating banks' use of super intelligence (SI)" in normal-course business activities. On method, examiners "should not treat SI as a separate and distinct risk category", and risk classification "may be based on potential consequences, transfer of agency" and the degree of human oversight, "rather than the technical sophistication of the SI used". On weight, "control intensity could increase with the potential consequences" of an "SI agent's failure or misuse". On force, it "does not establish supervisory expectations for banks", and "nothing in this guide is intended to establish new regulatory expectations". The bulletin links a guide of the same title, which returned a server error every time. Reported, from Decrypt, Forbes and Forvis Mazars, which agree: the guide runs 22 pages and sets 4 illustrative risk tiers, with fully autonomous payment agents and real-time credit decision systems highest and basic internal productivity tools lowest; it tells examiners to look at identity verification, delegated permissions, transaction limits, monitoring and the ability to suspend or revoke access; and it raises external agents run by customers, financial technology firms or other businesses that connect through bank channels. The same accounts report that it suggests circuit breakers, rate limits, restricted permissions and emergency shutdown controls for systems that keep operating while making harmful decisions, and that a press release carries identifier NR-OCC-2026-97A. Context from Axios on October 22, as reported: Morgan Stanley was blocking outside agents while JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citi restricted access to theirs. Not established: the tier definitions in the agency's own words, whether any bank has been examined against the framework, and whether the other federal banking regulators will follow.

1. Oct 2

   The executive order Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence is published in the Federal Register, introducing the term the OCC has now adopted.

2. Oct 22

   Axios reports, as relayed by Decrypt, that Morgan Stanley is blocking outside AI agents from customer accounts and that JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citi are restricting their access.

3. Nov 2

   Hong Kong's central bank opens a project to govern AI agents that pay, carded in Edition 070. The question of who an agent acts for is now live in 2 financial centres.

4. Nov 4

   The OCC issues Bulletin 2026-54, Super Intelligence: Supervisory Framework, addressed to every national bank chief executive and to all examining personnel, creating no new requirements.

5. Nov 5

   The Education Department proposes striking the words artificial intelligence from its own priorities, carded in Edition 075. A second agency moves to the new vocabulary.