Fed Discloses Details of Private Meeting with Bank CEOs

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve Board on Wednesday disclosed details of a private meeting held with chief executives of several major U.S. banks on efforts to overhaul the financial system.

The meeting held behind closed doors with Fed Gov. Daniel Tarullo, head of bank supervision for the central bank, was intended to discuss the recent stress tests undertaken by the 19 largest financial institutions in March.

Banks have been confused about the results because their internal models did not match up with the Fed's calculations. The discrepancy has raised a number of questions on what models the central bank used to score each institution.

But in its read-out of the meeting with executives, including Lloyd Blankfein for Goldman Sachs, Richard Davis for U.S. Bancorp, and Jamie Dimon for JPMorgan Chase & Co., the Fed did little to provide further clarity on the issue — at least publicly — given that it's largely considered a confidential supervisory matter.

James Gorman for Morgan Stanley, Jay Hooley for State Street Corp., and Brian Moynihan for Bank of America Corp. were also in attendance at the meeting held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The Fed, which has adopted a policy to disclose any meetings related to implementation of Dodd-Frank, said Tarullo and the executives discussed several pending rules under the regulatory reform law, including the so-called "Volcker Rule" and alternatives to credit ratings in regulations.

Bank executives also aired their concerns on a rule calling for a single-counterparty credit limit, which they believe will overstate the credit risk for certain transactions and establish a more stringent credit exposure limit for the biggest firms.

According to the Fed, the bank executives discussed concerns about regulators' recent efforts to draw up new alternatives to credit ratings because they could overstate the risk of certain assets. The regulation is required by Dodd-Frank.

Executives also discussed the Fed's proposal to ban banks from proprietary trading and hedging and private equity activities. Executives expressed their concern to regulators that the rule would ultimately "constrain market-making activity and liquidity of trading markets," the central bank said.

Additionally, bankers raised issues on proposed risk retention requirements, as well as the negative impact Dodd-Frank could have on U.S. banks ability to be competitive with their international counterparts.

Neither Tarullo nor Fed staff responded or replied to views expressed by executives during the meeting — a fact that the bankers were warned of ahead of time. Rather, Fed officials explained they would consider their comments along with other feedback by stakeholders in the rulemaking process.

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