preview

Summary: Assessment Of Federal Reserve Stress Testing

Good Essays

Assessment of Federal Reserve Stress Testing The financial crisis of 2007-2009 is considered to have been the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The precipitating factor of the crisis was a high default rate in the subprime home mortgage sector. In response to the risky lending that was occurring, the crisis threatened the collapse of large financial institutions. National governments decided to offer support and bail these institutions out to prevent possible disaster to the greater economic system. In the GAO report, Additional Actions Could Help Ensure the Achievement of Stress Test Goals, the GAO exposed the inefficiencies with the stress tests implemented during the crisis as well as the lack of preparedness of big banks …show more content…

Up until 2007, stress tests were typically executed only by the banks themselves for internal self-assessment. In 2007, there was a push by governmental regulatory bodies to conduct their own stress tests to insure the effectiveness of operations within financial institutions. As noted in the GAO report, “…stress testing before the recent financial crisis was seen as one of many risk-management tools and was not a major component of banking regulators’ supervisory programs” (U.S. Government Accountability Office [GAO], 2016). Since the 2007-2009 financial crisis, a comprehensive firm-wide stress testing has been introduced and has become an integral part of firms’ internal capital adequacy assessment processes and of banking regulators’ supervisory …show more content…

Changes however have brought upon limitations in analytical approaches, risk assessment by the Federal Reserve, and transparency. Most of these changes by the Federal Reserve have not always followed its own guidance or principles. For example, when quantitative assessments are performed the Federal Reserve bases its determinations on the results of both the supervisory and company-run stress tests. This would in turn create tension between institutions’ desire to avoid failing the CCAR quantitative assessment and the power of their stress test decisions. When the Federal Reserve includes company-run stress tests in the CCAR quantitative assessment, they limit the risk-management and capital planning benefits for participating companies without increasing the effectiveness of the quantitative assessment. Another example of the Federal Reserve steering from its own principles is within qualitative assessment disclosure and communication. In this area, transparency is the main problem because the Federal Reserve does not publicly disclose information that allows for a better understanding of its assessment methodology. Also, the companies that must meet these expectations annually may face challenges from the irregular timing of communications. This in turn could limit the achievement of the Federal Reserve’s CCAR

Get Access