Banks ordered to provide ‘living wills’ to regulators

Federal regulators finalized a regulation Tuesday that requires the nation’s largest banks to provide “living wills” for dismantling them if they collapse.

The rule from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) obligates banks with more than $50 billion in assets to submit a blueprint for dissolution that would minimize broader damage to the financial system. 

The living wills are intended to allow the FDIC to take apart a dying bank while limiting losses and returning funds — an attempt to avoid a repeat of the crisis that played out in 2008, when problems at large institutions nearly toppled the financial system. 

The final rule applies to 37 different banks, which hold a combined $4.14 trillion in government-protected deposits — good for nearly 61 percent of all bank deposits nationwide.

The FDIC also proposed a rule Tuesday that would require banks with more than $10 billion to regularly “stress test” their accounting books for problems. Banks would test their stability against a range of hypothetical economic conditions that could occur in the future.

The Dodd-Frank financial reform law that President Obama signed in 2009 required both regulations. 

"Both the FDIC and the institutions being tested will benefit from the forward-looking results that the stress tests will provide. The results will assist in ensuring an institution's financial stability by helping determine whether it has sufficient capital levels to withstand a period of economic stress," said FDIC Acting Chairman Martin Gruenberg.

Monday's meeting also served as the first for Richard Cordray, the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director. Under Dodd-Frank, the head of the CFPB also fills a seat on the FDIC's board. He, along with every member of the FDIC, supported the stress test proposal, but opted not to vote on the living will proposal, since he was not around for the development of the final rule.

—This story was updated at 2:48 p.m.