Bush nominates KU grad to run FDIC

When the debate heats up over Wal-Mart's latest venture into the banking business, a Jayhawk might be refereeing the fight. President Bush has nominated KU graduate Sheila Bair, c'75, l'78, to oversee the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp for the next five years and serve on the board through 2013. If confirmed by the Senate, Bair would be thrust into the middle of the ongoing discussion about the world's largest retailer's plans to start its own bank. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. submitted an application to the FDIC for deposit insurance on April 10.

An Independence, Kan., native Bair is presently a professor at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. From 2001-'02, she was the assistant U.S. Treasury secretary for financial institutions. Earlier she was a consultant to the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, and from 1995 to 2000 she was the senior vice president for government relations for the NYSE. From 1991 to 1995, Bair served as commissioner on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
    
The FDIC is an independent agency created by Congress during the Great Depression to insure private bank accounts. It insures up to $100,000 in deposits in individual accounts and up to $250,000 for individual retirement accounts held in banks.