InfoBytes Blog
Federal Reserve seeks comments on capital framework for U.S. subsidiaries of foreign banks
On April 8, the Federal Reserve Board announced a notice of proposed rulemaking and request for comment (NPRM) seeking to modify its regulation of the regulatory capital requirements for U.S. subsidiaries of foreign banking organizations. Chairman Jerome Powell referred to a proposal issued last fall for refining regulations for domestic banking firms based on risk profiles (previously covered by InfoBytes here), and noted that “because the U.S. operations of most foreign banks tend to have a larger cross-border profile, greater capital markets activities, and higher levels of short-term funding, they often present greater risk than a simpler, more traditional domestic bank.”
The NPRM builds upon the Federal Reserve’s framework for U.S. firms announced last fall, and states that foreign banking organizations with $100 billion or more in U.S. assets would be assigned to one of three categories based on the size of their U.S. operations as well as the following risk-based indicators: “cross-jurisdictional activity, nonbank assets, off-balance sheet exposure, and weighted short-term wholesale funding.” Under the proposal, foreign banking organizations would be classified into the following three categories: (i) Category II: foreign banking organizations with U.S. assets exceeding $700 billion or $75 billion in cross-border activity; (ii) Category III: foreign banking organizations with more than $250 billion in U.S. assets that also exceed certain risk thresholds; and (iii) Category IV: foreign banking organizations with U.S. assets between $100 billion and $250 billion and minimal risk factors. Category I would be reserved for U.S.-based global systemically important banks.
A second proposal issued the same day by the Federal Reserve Board, the FDIC, and the OCC (collectively, the “Agencies”) requests comment on, among other things, whether the Agencies should extend standardized liquidity requirements to foreign banking organizations’ U.S.-based branches and agency networks as well as approaches for doing so.
Comments on both proposals are due June 21.