Midsize Banks Approach Stress Test Deadline

WASHINGTON—A first-of-its-kind deadline is approaching for midsize U.S. banks to disclose results of their internal "stress tests" later this month, though the findings are unlikely to pack the kind of market-moving punch as those released by the biggest Wall Street banks.

The Federal Reserve and other bank overseers issued a reminder Tuesday about the disclosures, which are required to happen between June 15 and June 30. Banks with between $10 billion and $50 billion in assets are required under the 2010 Dodd-Frank law to run the tests, which simulate each bank's performance during a hypothetical recession.

Banks like New York Community Bancorp Inc. and CIT Group Inc. must disclose a description of the risks included in their stress tests, their losses, revenue, and capital levels under a "severely adverse" economic scenario, and other details, the banking regulators said.

But investors in those banks won't have to stress as much as investors in Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and other big banks.

Unlike the "stress tests" for larger firms, regulators won't issue a public judgment approving or disapproving the midsize banks' results and won't run their own simulation of how each bank would fare. The results also won't be a prerequisite for regulatory approval of banks' plans to reward shareholders with dividends and other payouts.

"The company-run stress tests are hypothetical results and are not intended to be forecasts or expected outcomes, and the agencies will not make any public statements about the results," the Fed, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said in a news release Tuesday.

The disclosures will be required annually in 2016 and future years.

Write to Ryan Tracy at [e-mail]

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