In releasing its latest proposals on capital requirements, bankers might consider it the Tarullo Fed vs. the Bernanke Fed.
Ben Bernanke makes the monetary decisions but arguably the more impactful ones on regulations are being meted out by Daniel Tarullo. And bankers are seeing the fruits of his rule: much to the chagrin of US banks both big and small the Fed on Thursday released its notice of proposed rulemaking (NPR) on capital. And as the Wall Street Journal put it, it’s one size fits all.
If the proposal becomes law, banks will have to maintain Basel 3 levels of common equity equal to 4.5 percent of their risk-weighted assets, plus an additional 2.5 percent capital conservation buffer, also made up of common equity. This puts the total at 7 percent of common-equity cushion. Currently common-equity standards are around 2 percent.
“There’s a primordial urge for punishment,” said one banking regulation attorney at The NeuGroup’s Bank Treasurers’ Peer Group meeting in May. And indeed that seems to be the force driving Gov. Tarullo, a former law professor, member of the Clinton Administration and Justice Department attorney. If he had his way entirely, capital requirements could well be at 14 percent, which he suggested in speech last year. Another sign of his hardline approach was during a May 2012 meeting with bankers, at which the Fed governor sat in silence after bank representatives stated their concerns about coming regulations. While Fed officials are not allowed to comment on coming regulations, meeting attendees said the exchange, or the lack there of, was awkward.
However, bankers are likely used to the Tarullo Fed’s silence, as they’ve been subject to the treatment time and time again since the crisis began. For instance, the Fed has been completely silent about its stress test models, keeping bankers of all shapes and sizes – and even the regional Fed banks – in the dark from one test to the next.
“The Fed is unwilling to share [the models] with the public or even the banks,” said one observer. And more troubling, the Fed has appointed “a panel of academics but no bankers.”
“The Fed doesn’t trust banks,” this observer added. “It thinks they could game the stress tests. This illustrates the wide divide between the Fed and banks.”
And there is much ground to cover to close that divide. In his statement for the announcement Gov. Tarullo indicated there will be more to come. “The rules before us this afternoon mark an important milestone on the road to a set of strong, complementary capital standards for banking organizations.” One gets the sense this will be a rather long road.
The latest NPR. According to the Fed, the latest proposal is split into three parts. The first, Regulatory Capital Rules: Regulatory Capital, Implementation of Basel III, Minimum Regulatory Capital Ratios, Capital Adequacy, and Transition Provisions, and will apply to all entities with total consolidated assets of $500mn or more, as well as savings and loan holding companies. Following the Basel framework, the capital requirement NPR would, according to the Fed:
- Increase the quantity and quality of capital required by proposing a new minimum common equity tier 1 ratio of 4.5 percent of risk-weighted assets and a common equity tier 1 capital conservation buffer of 2.5 percent of risk-weighted assets, and raising the minimum tier 1 capital ratio from 4 percent to 6 percent of risk-weighted assets;
- Revise the definition of capital to improve the ability of regulatory capital instruments to absorb losses;
- Establish limitations on capital distributions and certain discretionary bonus payments if additional specified amounts, or “buffers,” of common equity tier 1 capital are not met; and
- Introduce a supplementary leverage ratio for internationally active banking organizations.
The second rule, Regulatory Capital Rules: Standardized Approach for Risk-weighted Assets; Market Discipline and Disclosure Requirements, also would apply to all banking organizations. The third, Regulatory Capital Rules: Advanced Approaches Risk-based Capital Rule; Market Risk Capital Rule, would apply “to banking organizations that are subject to the banking agencies’ advanced approaches rule or to their market risk rule.” These banks are the biggest of the big with at least $250bn in assets.
The costs of compliance with these and other rules for banks certainly will soar, which like most other costs foisted upon providers, will be passed on to customers and other clients. So treasurers should expect further increases in the cost of doing business with banks.
The Federal Reserve requests comments on the three NPRs by September 7, 2012.