InfoBytes Blog
OCC issues final stress test revisions
On October 2, the OCC issued the final rule revising the stress testing requirements for OCC-supervised institutions, consistent with changes made by Section 401 of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act. The final rule remains unchanged from the proposed rule, which was issued by the OCC in December 2018 (previously covered by InfoBytes here). The final rule (i) changes the minimum threshold for applicability from $10 billion to $250 billion; (ii) revises the frequency of required stress tests for most FDIC-supervised institutions from annual to biannual; and (iii) reduces the number of required stress testing scenarios from three to two. Specifically, OCC-supervised institutions that are covered institutions will “be required to conduct, report, and publish a stress test once every two years, beginning on January 1, 2020, and continuing every even-numbered year thereafter.” The final rule also adds a new defined term, “reporting year,” which will be the year in which a covered bank must conduct, report, and publish its stress test. The final rule requires certain covered institutions to still conduct annual stress tests, but this is limited to covered institutions that are consolidated under holding companies required to conduct stress tests more frequently than once every other year. Lastly, the final rule removes the “adverse” scenario—which the OCC states has provided “limited incremental information”—and requires stress tests to be conducted under the “baseline” and “severely adverse” stress testing scenarios. The final rule is effective November 24.