Skip to main content
Menu Icon
Close

InfoBytes Blog

Financial Services Law Insights and Observations

Filter

Subscribe to our InfoBytes Blog weekly newsletter and other publications for news affecting the financial services industry.

  • Federal Reserve Requests Comments on Proposals Seeking Transparency Increases in Stress Testing Programs

    Agency Rule-Making & Guidance

    The Federal Reserve Board (Fed) issued a request for comments on three proposals designed to increase stress testing transparency while also testing the resiliency of large, complex banks. Earlier in June, Fed Chair Janet Yellen underscored the Fed’s understanding of the need to provide transparency in its Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) process and stress test scenarios. (See previous InfoBytes coverage here.) The first December 7 proposal, “Enhanced Disclosure of the Models Used in the Federal Reserve’s Supervisory Stress Test,” announces the Fed’s plans to publicly release, for the first time, information concerning the models and methodologies used during supervisory stress tests, including those applied in the CCAR, including:

    • “enhanced descriptions of supervisory models, including key variables;”
    • “modeled loss rates on loans grouped by important risk characteristics and summary statistics associated with the loans in each group;” and,
    • “portfolios of hypothetical loans and the estimated loss rates associated with the loans in each portfolio.”

    The information will offer banks expanded details as to how the Fed’s models treat different types of loans under stress, along with insight into the determination of annual stress test results.

    The second request for comments concerns the “Stress Testing Policy Statement,” which elaborates on prior disclosures and outlines details on the principles and policies that govern the Fed’s development, implementation, and validation of its stress testing models.

    Finally, the Fed issued a proposed policy statement to request comments on introduced amendments to the design of its annual hypothetical economic scenarios framework. The “Amendments to Policy Statement on the Scenario Design Framework for Stress Testing” is intended to enhance transparency and provide clarification on hypothetical economic scenarios, including the direction of housing prices, as well as the Fed’s commitment to exploring additional variables to test for funding risks.

    All comments must be received by January 22, 2018.

    Agency Rule-Making & Guidance Federal Issues Federal Reserve Stress Test CCAR

  • OCC Proposes Changes to Annual Stress Test Rule

    Agency Rule-Making & Guidance

    On October 27, the Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC) issued proposed changes to its “stress test” rules for covered financial institutions required by the Dodd-Frank Act. Specifically, the proposal would, (i) extend the window by three months to allow the OCC to choose an appropriate “as-of” date in the trading and counterparty default component of the stress test (intended to conform with recent rule changes by the Federal Reserve); and (ii) extend the transition process for certain banks and savings associations that cross the $50 billion asset threshold before stress testing requirements are applicable. 

    Comments for the proposed changes must be received on or before December 26.

    In addition to this proposal, on October 6, the Fed, FDIC, and the OCC, issued a joint notice and request for comment, which proposes to combine the agencies’ three separate, identical stress test report forms into a single new Federal Financial Institutional Examination Council (FFIEC) report (FFIEC 016) under the Dodd-Frank Act (previously covered by InfoBytes here).

    Agency Rule-Making & Guidance OCC CCAR Stress Test Federal Reserve Dodd-Frank

  • Senate Banking Committee Seeks Perspectives of Midsized, Regional, and Large Institutions, Regulators on Economic Growth

    Federal Issues

    On June 15, the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (Committee) held a hearing entitled, “Fostering Economic Growth: Midsized, Regional and Large Institution Perspective”. This is the third in a series of hearings to address economic growth. Frequent topics of discussion in the hearing included stress testing and capital planning—specifically the Federal Reserve’s Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review stress test. Also discussed was the Systemically Important Financial Institution designation and costs incurred as a result, as well as the Volcker Rule.

    Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Chairman of the Committee, remarked in his opening statement that the current regulatory framework is “insufficiently tailored for many of the firms subject to it.”

    Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) – ranking member of the Committee—released an opening statement in which he stated “Let me be clear: proposals to weaken oversight of the biggest banks have no place in this committee’s process. . . Having said that, I am optimistic that there is room for agreement on a modified regime for overseeing regional banks.”

    The June 15 hearing—a video of which can be accessed here—included testimony from the following witnesses:

    • Mr. Harris Simmons, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Zions Bancorporation, on behalf of the Regional Bank Coalition (prepared statement)
    • Mr. Greg Baer, President of The Clearing House Association (prepared statement)
    • Mr. Robert HillChief Executive Officer of South State Corporation, on behalf of the Midsize Bank Coalition of America (prepared statement)
    • Ms. Saule Omarova, Professor of Law at Cornell University Law School (prepared statement)

    On June 22, the Senate Banking Committee held another hearing entitled “Fostering Economic Growth: Regulator Perspective, the fourth in its series of hearings focusing on economic growth. The hearing is available via webcast here.

    Federal Issues Senate Banking Committee Systemic Risk Bank Regulatory Bank Supervision FDIC OCC NCUA Federal Reserve CCAR Volcker Rule

  • Federal Reserve Chair Comments on CCAR and Stress Test Transparency

    Agency Rule-Making & Guidance

    On June 16, Federal Reserve (Fed) Chair Janet Yellen sent a letter to Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.) underscoring the Fed’s understanding of the need to provide transparency in its Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) process and stress test scenarios. The Fed, Yellen asserts, will continue to published CCAR instructions in advance of the submission date for capital plans. Yellen further committed to releasing instructions and scenarios for the stress tests by February 15. The guidance will offer banks more details about the qualitative and quantitative components of the exam. However, Yellen warned that disclosing all the details of the Fed's modeling on the annual exams “would give banks an incentive to adjust their business practices in ways that change the results of the stress test without changing the risks faced by the firms . . . [resulting in] less effective stress tests that present a misleading picture of the actual vulnerabilities faced by firms. There would also be a risk of increased correlations in asset holdings among large banks, making the financial system more vulnerable to adverse economic shocks.” However, Yellen said the Fed is weighing different approaches to provide banks with more information about the agency's modeling.

    Agency Rule-Making & Guidance Federal Reserve Stress Test Congress CCAR

  • OCC, FDIC, and Fed Release Stress Test Scenarios for 2017

    Federal Issues

    On February 3, the Fed announced the release of the “Supervisory Scenarios” to be used by banks and supervisors for the 2017 Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) and Dodd-Frank Act stress test exercises and also issued instructions to firms participating in CCAR. The Fed also published three letters that provide additional information on its stress-testing program. The three letters describe: (i) the Horizontal Capital Review for large, noncomplex companies; (ii) the CCAR qualitative assessment for U.S. intermediate holding companies of foreign banks, which are submitting capital plans for the first time; and (iii) improvements to how the Fed will estimate post-stress capital ratios.

    On February 3, the OCC similarly released economic and financial market scenarios for 2017 that are to be used by national banks and federal savings associations (with total consolidated assets of more than $10 billion) in their annual Dodd-Frank Act-mandated stress test. On February 6, the FDIC released its stress test scenarios, working in consultation with the Fed and OCC.

    The three sets of supervisory scenarios provide each agency with forward-looking information for use in bank supervision and will assist the agencies in assessing the covered institutions’ risk profile and capital adequacy.

    Federal Issues FDIC Banking Dodd-Frank Federal Reserve OCC Bank Supervision Stress Test CCAR Bank Regulatory Agency Rule-Making & Guidance

  • Fed Finalizes Rule Simplifying Stress Testing Process for Regional Banks

    Federal Issues

    On January 30, the Fed issued a finalized version of its rule aimed at simplifying the Fed’s Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR or “stress test”) by exempting all but the largest financial institutions from the qualitative assessment portion of the Fed’s stress test. The changes will apply to the 2017 CCAR cycle, which began on January 1, 2017.

    Specifically, the new rule provides that “large and noncomplex firms”—those with total consolidated assets of at least $50 billion but less than $250 billion, and nonbank assets of less than $75 billion (and that are not U.S. global-systemically important banks)—will no longer be subject to the provisions allowing the Fed to object to a bank’s capital adequacy plan based on an evaluation of hypothetical scenarios of severe economic and financial market stress, known as a “qualitative assessment.” Previously, the Board could object to the annual capital plan of any bank subject to stress testing, based on the quantitative or qualitative findings of the exercise. However, the rule also decreases the amount of additional capital exempted banks can distribute to shareholders in connection with a capital plan without seeking prior approval from the Fed, now 0.25 percent of tier 1 capital down from 1 percent.

    Federal Issues Banking Federal Reserve CCAR Bank Regulatory

Pages

Upcoming Events