The rulemaking agencies have spent the past year carefully analyzing the nearly 19,000 public comments on the proposal and have made significant progress in crafting a final rule that is faithful to the language of the statute and maximizes bank safety and soundness and financial stability at the least cost to the liquidity of the financial markets, credit availability, and economic growth.
This outlook for economic activity is also confirmed by available forecasts. Downside risks to economic growth, relating, in particular, to persistently high and volatile oil prices and concerns about global imbalances, still dominate on the external side. In relation to price developments, annual HICP inflation was 2.2% in December, down from 2.3% in November and 2.5% in October.