Michelle Bowman

Stories

Fed freezes bank capital rules during stress-test overhaul

Leading the stress-test overhaul

Every year since the 2008 crisis, the Federal Reserve has graded big banks on a simulated disaster, and the score sets how much spare capital each must hold. On June 24, 2026, the Fed released the latest grades for 32 large lenders. All cleared the bar with room to spare.

Updated Jun 24

U.S. regulators dismantle post-crisis limits on leveraged lending

Rule Changes

Key Fed addressee of Senate Democrats’ demands for private-credit stress testing and stronger safeguards amid leveraged-lending deregulation

In March 2013, U.S. bank regulators issued joint supervisory guidance on leveraged lending to prevent a return of pre-2008-style underwriting excesses, with examiners informally anchoring scrutiny around a roughly six-times-EBITDA leverage benchmark. Over the next decade, banks' pullback shifted riskier deal finance toward private-credit funds, CLOs, and other nonbanks—expanding an opaque "shadow banking" ecosystem even as regulators maintained the guidance was supervisory, not a binding rule.

Updated May 9