On April 17th, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (“Fed”) issued a better-late-than-never Supervisory Letter, SR 15-7, describing its governance structure for supervising systemically important financial institutions under its so-called Large Institution Supervision Coordinating Committee (“LISCC”). [1] Though much of the structure has been in place for years, the Fed had not publicly explained in detail its supervisory process, leading some in Congress and elsewhere to criticize its secrecy.

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On December 9, 2014, the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) issued a long-awaited proposal to impose additional capital requirements on the US’s global systemically important banks (G-SIBs). The proposal implements the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s (BCBS) G-SIB capital surcharge framework that was finalized in 2011, but also proposes changes to BCBS’s calculation methodology resulting in significantly higher surcharges for US G-SIBs compared with their global peers.

The proposal, which we expect will be finalized in 2015, requires US G-SIBs to hold additional capital (Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) as a percentage of Risk Weighted Assets (RWA)) equal to the greater of the amount calculated under two methods. The first method is consistent with BCBS’s framework, and calculates the amount of extra capital to be held based on the G-SIB’s size, interconnectedness, cross-jurisdictional activity, substitutability, and complexity. The second method is introduced by the US proposal, and uses similar inputs but replaces the substitutability element with a measure based on a G-SIB’s reliance on short-term wholesale funding (STWF).

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On November 10th, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) issued a long-awaited consultative document that defined a global standard for minimum amounts of Total Loss Absorbency Capacity (TLAC) to be held by Global Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs). TLAC is meant to ensure that G-SIBs have the loss absorbing and recapitalization capacity so that, in and immediately following resolution, critical functions can continue without requiring taxpayer support or threatening financial stability.

The FSB’s document requires a G-SIB to hold a minimum amount of regulatory capital (Tier 1 and Tier 2) plus long term unsecured debt that together are at least 16-20% [1] of its risk weighted assets (RWA), i.e., at least twice the minimum Basel III total regulatory capital ratio of 8%. In addition, the amount of a firm’s regulatory capital and unsecured long term debt cannot be less than 6% of its leverage exposure, i.e., at least twice the Basel III leverage ratio. In addition to this “Pillar 1” requirement, TLAC would also include a subjective component (called “Pillar 2”) to be assessed for each firm individually, based on qualitative firm-specific risks that take into account the firm’s recovery and resolution plans, systemic footprint, risk profile, and other factors.

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