U.S. regulators will release on March 7 the results of tests to determine how big banks would weather a financial shock, and they will put out evaluations of the largest banks' capital plans the following week, the Federal Reserve said on Monday. The 2010 Dodd-Frank financial oversight law required stress tests to ensure that banks have big enough capital cushions to survive a severe recession or other economic jolt. Banks with more than $50 billion in assets were required to go through the tests this year. In the toughest hypothetical economic scenario used, U.S. unemployment would spike up to about 12 percent, Europe and Japan would see recessions, and economic activity in China would weaken sharply. The Fed will first release the results of the Dodd-Frank tests, which assume no changes in dividend payments and no common stock repurchases to make it easier to compare the results from different firms. The Fed also will evaluate whether the largest bank holding companies' individual
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