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Working Paper
Centrality-based Capital Allocations
This paper looks at the effect of capital rules on a banking system that is connected through correlated credit exposures and interbank lending. Keeping total capital in the system constant, the reallocation rules, which combine individual bank characteristics and interconnectivity measures of interbank lending, are to minimize a measure of systemwide losses. Using the detailed German Credit Register for estimation, we find that capital rules based on eigenvectors dominate any other centrality measure, saving about 15 percent in expected bankruptcy costs.
Discussion Paper
Banking System Vulnerability through the COVID-19 Pandemic
More than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. banking system has remained stable and seems to have weathered the crisis well, in part because of effects of the policy actions undertaken during the early stages of the pandemic. In this post, we provide an update of four analytical models that aim to capture different aspects of banking system vulnerability and discuss their perspective on the COVID pandemic. The four models, introduced in a Liberty Street Economics post in November 2018 and updated annually since then, monitor vulnerabilities of U.S. banking firms and the way in which ...
Speech
Building Financial System Resilience
To conclude, a resilient financial system plays an important role in ensuring a strong economy. After the global financial crisis, steps were taken to shore up the resilience of the banking system. Systemically important banking institutions have higher capital and liquidity buffers and better risk-management systems than they did. The sound banking system was able to lend important support to households and businesses throughout the pandemic. But the financial system is dynamic, with new products, business models, and technologies being introduced, and the economic environment can change ...
Speech
A Supervisory Perspective on the U.S. Banking System
Remarks at the Financial Times Global Banking Summit (delivered via videoconference).
Working Paper
The Informational Centrality of Banks
The equity and debt prices of large nonbank firms contain information about the future state of the banking system. In this sense, banks are informationally central. The amount of this information varies over time and over equity and debt. During a financial crisis banks are, by definition of a crisis, at risk of failure. Debt prices became about 50 percent more informative than equity prices about the future state of the banking system during the financial crisis of 2007-2009. This was partly due to investors' fears that banks might not be able to refinance the firms' debt.
Briefing
Core Banking Systems and Options for Modernization
Each U.S. depository institution (DI)—including banks and credit unions—uses a back-end information technology system to process daily transactions and manage financial accounts. Many of these “core banking systems” are outdated and unable to fully accommodate modern services, such as open banking and instant payments. Modernizing these systems is a complex process, and DIs may consider a full replacement, a component-based replacement, or augmenting their existing system.