After describing the concept, design, and implementation of last year’s tests, I will explain how our experience has helped prompt major changes in Federal Reserve supervision of the nation’s largest financial institutions. Then I will discuss how this experience has stimulated debate over the merits of publicly releasing supervisory information.
1 Origins and execution of the Supervisory Capital Assessment Program By February 2009, many steps had already been taken to restore the health of, and confidence in, U.S. banks. The U.S. Treasury had injected capital into banks under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation had expanded guarantees for bank liabilities under its Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program.