Federal Banking Regulators Launch Next Round of Stress Testing

Bank Compliance Capital Requirements

On November 15, the Federal Reserve Board, the OCC, and the FDIC released the macroeconomic and financial market scenarios to be used in annual stress tests conducted by covered institutions pursuant to rules the regulators finalized last month. The economic scenarios are the same for each regulator and their covered institutions and include baseline, adverse, and severely adverse scenarios with variables that reflect, among other things, economic activity, unemployment, exchange rates, prices, incomes, and interest rates. The baseline scenario represents expectations of private-sector forecasters, while the adverse and severely adverse scenarios present hypothetical conditions designed to assess the strength and resilience of financial institutions, as well as their ability to continue to meet the credit needs of households and businesses in stressful economic and financial environments. The Federal Reserve Board also published a proposed policy statement and the OCC issued interim guidance to describe how those agencies will develop and distribute stress test scenarios in future years. Comments are due on the Federal Reserve Board policy statement by February 15, 2013, and on the OCC interim guidance within 60 days after publication in the Federal Register. Finally, last week, the Federal Reserve Board issued instructions and guidelines for covered institutions, including timelines for submissions. In a shift from prior years, the Federal Reserve Board will provide covered firms an opportunity to adjust planned capital distributions based on the stress test results before the Federal Reserve Board makes a final decision on their capital adequacy.