By Douwe Miedema
WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) - The largest U.S. andforeign banks would need to keep track of deposits better undera plan launched by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation onTuesday, as many lenders have grown and become more complex.
Under the plan, banks with more than 2 million or soaccounts would be required to enhance their record keeping andbe able to calculate the amounts for each depositor by the endof any business day, the agency said.
It said the FDIC "has often found inconsistent and missingdata" in the current records, which the banks need to providebecause of an earlier rule that was issued in 2008.
The FDIC's role is to step in when a bank is in trouble andit then has to decide rapidly which clients get their money backbecause they fall under the deposit guarantee scheme, a crucialmeasure to retain trust in the system.
The new requirements might well spark protests from banks,which have been subject to a raft of new rules that have rampedup compliance costs, and have sapped some of the most lucrativebusinesses after the 2007-09 financial crisis.
Smaller community banks, which have garnered substantialsupport in Congress, were exempt from the rule.
The FDIC's plan, which the agency's board will vote on lateron Tuesday, asked a long list of questions that banks maycomment on. Once it has digested any feedback, it may propose arule and later finalize it.
Among the banks affected were Bank of America,Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo, and foreign bankssuch as Barclays and Santander.
The largest number of deposit accounts at a single bank hadrisen 42 percent to 84.5 million in December 2014 from June 2008and the number of deposit accounts at the 10 biggest banks hadgone up by 25 percent in that period, the FDIC said. (Reporting by Douwe Miedema; Editing by Bill Trott)