The Federal Reserve Board on Friday announced that the temporary change to its supplementary leverage ratio, or SLR, for bank holding companies will expire as scheduled on March 31. Additionally, the Board will shortly seek comment on measures to adjust the SLR. The Board will take appropriate actions to assure that any changes to the SLR do not erode the overall strength of bank capital requirements. To ease strains in the Treasury market resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and to promote lending to households and businesses, the Board temporarily modified the SLR last year to exclude U.S. Treasury securities and ... (full story)

The Federal Reserve on Friday declined to extend a pandemic-era rule that relaxed the amount of capital banks had to maintain against Treasurys and other holdings, in a move that could upset Wall Street and the bond market. In a brief announcement, the Fed said it would allow a change to the supplementary leverage ratio to expire March 31. The initial move, announced April 1, 2020, allowed banks to exclude Treasurys and deposits with Fed banks from the calculation of the leverage ratio. The decision to relax the capital requirements has been widely viewed as key to calming what had been tumultuous Treasury markets in ... (full story)