Minimum capital requirements

Capital One, PNC, Truist and, U.S. Bancorp are urging regulators to cut duplicative calculations and align U.S. rules with global standards, a longstanding preference for banks but one that will likely find a warm reception from a deregulation-focused Trump administration.

The Federal Reserve Friday issued a set of proposed changes to its stress testing program for the largest banks that would disclose the central bank's back-end stress testing models, a move that the Fed had long opposed out of fear of making the tests easier for banks to pass.

Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman said in a speech Tuesday that the central bank would unveil proposed revisions to its stress testing regime "in the next week or so."

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Thursday said the bank asset thresholds that trigger enhanced prudential standards like stress testing and additional capital requirements require a recalibration to account for inflation.

Senate Banking Committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., led a group of congressional Democrats in a letter to bank regulators telling them that loosening capital rules wouldn't improve the Treasury market's functioning.

The ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee said growing uncertainty and risks in the financial system mean the central bank should increase the countercyclical capital buffer for the nation's largest lenders.

It's time to dispense with the fiction that there is no cost to treating underwater "held-to-maturity" securities as regulatory capital. Thoughtful reconsideration of leverage ratio requirements offers an answer.

Regulators hope changes to the supplementary leverage ratio will improve Treasury market function, but whether that happens depends in large part on how banks react and adapt.

The largest U.S. banks took less of a capital hit under the Federal Reserve's hypothetical stress scenario than they did last year, but averaging the two sets of results could impact next year's regulatory requirements.

As the Federal Reserve considers changes to the supplemental leverage ratio, Fed Board Chair Jerome Powell said that effort is one piece of a broader deregulation package that will also address the Basel III capital rules.

Senate Banking Committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sent a letter to banking regulators urging them to preserve the enhanced Supplemental Leverage Ratio, warning that a rollback would only enrich bank shareholders.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell testified in the House Tuesday on the heels of yet another pointed social media post from President Donald Trump. But House Republicans largely avoided landing political blows against the central bank chair.

The Federal Reserve's vice chair for supervision said changes to the supplemental leverage ratio are needed to bolster the Treasury market and ensure banks are not incentivized to take on excessive risks.

The past two Federal Reserve vice chairs for supervision failed to implement the final installment of the Basel III capital framework. Newly installed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman is taking a new approach to the thorny question of bank capital.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has sent a draft proposal to revise the supplemental leverage ratio to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs as a first step toward revising the leverage rule.

In her first speech since being confirmed as the Federal Reserve's vice chair for supervision, Michelle Bowman outlined a set of ambitious pursuits that would overhaul bank regulation and examination.

Acting Comptroller of the Currency Rodney Hood signals rollback of key safeguards like the supplemental leverage ratio, aligning with administration's push to ease bank capital demands and spur credit.

Despite its commitment to change its stress testing program, the Federal Reserve is defending its current practices in court. That argument raises thorny legal questions about whether stress tests are more like rules or adjudications.

After building capital for years in anticipation of higher requirements, banks now face a lighter regulatory outlook under President Trump. But experts don't expect capital levels to come down quickly.

The Federal Reserve proposed a rule to average individual banks' stress test results over two years, a measure the central bank says would reduce volatility in bank capital requirements from year to year.