U.S. banking regulators have published the scenarios that major banks will face in the next round of stress testing.
The U.S. Federal Reserve Board Thursday issued the supervisory scenarios that will be used in the 2015 round of capital planning and stress testing, which includes a review of 31 bank holding companies with at least US$50 billion of total consolidated assets. At the same time, the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) published the scenarios that will be used in stress tests required of certain financial institutions with at least US$10 billion in assets.
The Fed says its tests will look at three different scenarios (baseline, adverse, and severely adverse) and will incorporate 28 variables, including economic activity, unemployment, exchange rates, asset prices, incomes, and interest rates. The baseline scenario models current economic forecasts, whereas the adverse and severely adverse scenarios describe hypothetical events and are designed to assess the strength of banks and their resilience to adverse economic environments.
The Fed notes that, as in previous stress tests, the six banks with large trading operations will be required to factor in a global market shock as part of their scenarios. It intends to provide the data for the global market shock scenario as soon as possible, and no later than Dec. 1. Additionally, eight firms that have substantial trading or custodial operations will be required to incorporate a counterparty default scenario.
The 31 banks undergoing capital reviews must submit their capital plans by Jan. 5, 2015.