Big Banks Would Survive $685,000,000,000 Financial Disaster Despite Lenders’ Riskier Balance Sheets: Federal Reserve

A year after three of the largest bank failures in US history, the Federal Reserve says America’s banking giants have enough capital to survive a “highly stressful scenario.”

In its yearly stress test, the Fed says 31 of the nation’s largest banks survived a simulation slamming the lenders with about $685 billion in credit card, business loan and commercial real estate losses.

The two-year simulation tested a scenario where the stock market tumbles 55%, commercial real estate prices drop 40% and unemployment hits 10%.

Although all of the banks on its list have enough capital to survive the financial fallout, the Fed says the banks’ balance sheets are more risky this year due to an increase in credit card balances, tighter lending margins and riskier corporate credit portfolios.

“While the severity of this year’s stress test is similar to last year’s, the test resulted in higher losses because bank balance sheets are somewhat riskier and expenses are higher.

The goal of our test is to help ensure that banks have enough capital to absorb losses in a highly stressful scenario. This test shows that they do.”

The test included JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

The troubled regional bank New York Community Bancorp, which is currently the 33rd largest bank in the US, was not part of the test.

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