The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has released the economic and financial market scenarios that will be used in the next round of stress tests in 2014 for U.S. banks.
The OCC says the scenarios include baseline, adverse and severely adverse scenarios, as described in the OCC's final rules that implement stress-test requirements of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.
According to a Reuters report, the Fed will publish the test results in two different stages: one mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act, and one to approve capital plans – the Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR). The Dodd-Frank stress tests act as an input for the more elaborate CCAR tests, says the report.
Concurrently, the OCC also issued the final "Policy Statement on the Principles for Development and Distribution of Annual Stress Test Scenarios." The guidance outlines the consultative processes that the OCC will use to gather information on material vulnerabilities or salient risks and to coordinate with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to develop the scenarios each year.
According to the Reuters report, the next round of testing will include a hypothetical scenario of a halving of the stock market and a severe economic recession. In addition, the banks must test for the first time whether they would be able to handle the default of their largest trading partner.
Reuters says 30 U.S. banks are participating in the tests, which they administer on their own.