Fed’s Bowman: US banking system remains resilient and on a solid foundation

Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman crossed wires, via Reuters late Tuesday, as he rules out chatters surrounding the challenges to the US banking system amid the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) fallout.

“Banking system has strong capital and liquidity and Fed board is carefully monitoring developments,” said Fed’s Bowman per Reuters.

The policymaker, however, didn’t comment anything on the monetary policy and economic outlook as stipulated by the two-week blackout period for the Fed governing body members ahead of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).

On the same line, US Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown also mentioned, during an interview with Bloomberg, that the US Congress should enact financial regulations to strengthen stress tests and capital and liquidity standards for banks. The policymaker also added that prospects remained low for such a step.

“Brown added that he hoped the Federal Reserve would not raise rates when it meets March 21 and 22,” reported Reuters.

Alternatively, Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that a raft of tougher capital and liquidity requirements are under review, as well as steps to beef up annual “stress tests” that assess banks’ ability to weather a hypothetical recession, according to a person familiar with the latest thinking among U.S. regulators. “The rules could target firms with between $100 billion to $250 billion in assets, which at present escape some of the toughest requirements,” per WSJ.

Also read: Forex Today: Dollar unable to recover despite CPI and yields; Wall Street rebounds