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   By Matthias Rieker 
 

The Federal Reserve approved the revised capital-adequacy assessments of Citigroup Inc. (C) and SunTrust Banks Inc. (STI), the two banks said Wednesday.

Both, along with Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB), resubmitted their "stress tests," which is required by the Fed annually. In March, the three banks' original tests were rejected in part and their requests to pay out capital to shareholders were denied.

Citi had originally asked to buy back stock. The bank said in June it didn't ask for buybacks when it resubmitted the test. Still, a rejection of the capital-adequacy assessment required the banks to resubmit the test regardless of their requests for capital distribution.

Citi "will make decisions regarding the 2013 capital plan later this year," a spokeswoman for the bank said Wednesday.

SunTrust had also previously disclosed that it didn't ask for a dividend increase or share repurchases this year. "SunTrust expects to re-evaluate its capital-deployment alternatives" as part of next year's stress test, the Atlanta bank said in a press release.

In November, the Fed said it will evaluate annually big banks' internal capital adequacy along with their plans to make capital distributions, and "will approve dividend increases or other capital distributions only for companies...able to demonstrate sufficient financial strength" to sustain an economic slump.

A Fed spokeswoman declined to comment about the approved resubmissions Wednesday.

Fifth Third said late Tuesday that the Fed approved a 25% dividend increase, to 10 cents a share per quarter, and up to $600 million in stock buybacks through the first quarter of 2013.

Ally Financial Inc. also failed the Fed's stress test in March and submitted a revised plan in June. "The company continues to have active, frequent, and constructive discussions with its regulators about the progress of these actions," Ally said in a statement Wednesday.

--Andrew R. Johnson contributed to this article.

Write to Matthias Rieker at matthias.rieker@dowjones.com.