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Discussion Paper
New Accounting Framework Faces Its First Test: CECL During the Pandemic
On January 1, 2020, most large and mid-sized U.S. banks adopted Current Expected Credit Losses (CECL), a new accounting standard for estimating allowances. Allowance for credit losses is an estimate of the amount that a bank is unlikely to recover from a financial asset.
Working Paper
COVID-19 as a Stress Test: Assessing the Bank Regulatory Framework
The widespread economic damage caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic poses the first major test of the bank regulatory reforms put in place following the global financial crisis. This study assesses this framework, with an emphasis on capital and liquidity requirements. Leading up to the COVID-19 crisis, banks were well-capitalized and held ample liquid assets, reflecting in part heightened requirements. Capital requirements were comparable across major jurisdictions, despite differences in the implementation of the international Basel standards. The overall robust capital and liquidity ...
Working Paper
CECL and the Credit Cycle
We find that that the Current Expected Credit Loss (CECL) standard would slightly dampen fluctuations in bank lending over the economic cycle. In particular, if the CECL standard had always been in place, we estimate that lending would have grown more slowly leading up to the financial crisis and more rapidly afterwards. We arrive at this conclusion by estimating historical allowances under CECL and modeling how the impact on accounting variables would have affected banks' lending and capital distributions. We consider a variety of approaches to address uncertainty regarding the management of ...
Discussion Paper
Analyzing the Community Bank Leverage Ratio
This note analyzes the newly introduced Community Bank Leverage Ratio ("CBLR") framework. The analysis covers the framework's eligibility, its capital stringency, and its potential impact on system-wide capital levels under a hypothetical adverse scenario.
Discussion Paper
The Pandemic's Impact on Credit Risk: Averted or Delayed?
The COVID-19 recession resulted in historic unemployment and a significant shock to much of the service sector. Despite these macroeconomic challenges, banks' risk-based capital buffers remain high and the number of bank failures remains low. Government relief programs, including the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, both directly and indirectly helped stabilize bank balance sheets during the crisis.