'Too Big to Fail' Banks Fail Regulatory Test on 'Living Wills'
The Federal Reserve Building in Washington, D.C. Photograph by Anadolu Agency — Getty Images
Federal Reserve and FDIC say “living wills” aren’t up to snuff.
Five out of eight of the country’s biggest banks do not have credible plans for winding down operations during a crisis without the help of public money, federal regulators said on Wednesday.
The “living wills” that the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation jointly agreed were not credible came from Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon , J.P. Morgan Chase, State Street, Wells Fargo.
The requirement for a living will was part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform legislation passed in the wake of the 2007-2009 financial crisis, when the U.S. government spent billions of dollars on bailouts to keep big banks from failing and wrecking the U.S. economy.
“The FDIC and Federal Reserve are committed to carrying out the statutory mandate that systemically important financial institutions demonstrate a clear path to an orderly failure under bankruptcy at no cost to taxpayers,” FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg said in a statement. “Today’s action is a significant step toward achieving that goal.”
None of the eight systemically important banks, which the U.S. government considers “too big to fail,” fared well in the evaluations. A bank has to fix deficiencies only if the two regulators jointly determine its plan does not have the potential to work.
The FDIC alone determined that the plan submitted by Goldman Sachs was not credible, while the Federal Reserve Board on its own found Morgan Stanley’s plan not credible. Citigroup’s living will did pass, but the regulators noted it had “shortcomings.”