a platform for consistent supervision and regulation. these u. s. intermediate holding companies would be subject to the same generally applicable riskbased capital, leverage, and capital planning requirements that apply to u. s. bank holding companies. in addition, u. s. intermediate holding companies and the u. s. branches and agencies of foreign banks with a large u. s. presence would be required to meet liquidity requirements similar to those applicable to large u. s. bank holding companies. the federal reserve issued the proposed rule to promote the resiliency of the u. s. operations of foreign banking organizations and, in turn, u. s. financial stability. bis central bankers ’ speeches other regulatory efforts to improve the resiliency and resolvability of gsibs the financial crisis made clear that policy makers must devote significant attention to the potential threat to financial stability posed by our most systemic financial firms. accordingly, the federal reserve has been focused on developing regulatory proposals that are designed to reduce the probability of failure of a gsib to levels that are meaningfully below those for less systemically important firms and materially reduce the consequences to the broader financial system and economy in the event of failure of a gsib. our goal has been to establish regulations that force gsibs to internalize the large negative externalities associated with their disorderly failure and that aim to offset any remaining too - big - to - fail subsidies these firms may enjoy. gsib risk - based capital surcharges a key component of the federal reserve ’ s program to improve gsib resiliency is our forthcoming proposal to impose graduated common equity risk - based capital surcharges on gsibs. this proposal will be based on the gsib capital surcharge framework developed by the basel committee, under which the size of the surcharge for an individual gsib is a function of the firm ’ s systemic importance. we currently are working on the implementing regulation for the basel committee gsib risk - based capital surcharge framework and expect to issue a proposal fairly soon. by further increasing the amount of the most loss - absorbing form of capital that is required to be held by the firms that potentially pose the greatest risk to financial stability, we intend to reduce the probability of failure of these firms to offset the greater negative externalities their failure would have on the financial system and to offset any funding advantage such firms may have because of their perceived status as too - big - tofail.

gsib leverage surcharges to further bolster the regulatory capital regime for the most systemic u. s. banking firms, the federal reserve and the other u. s. banking agencies have proposed to strengthen the internationally agreed - upon basel iii leverage ratio as applied to u. s. gsibs. this proposal would require u. s. gsibs to maintain a tier 1 capital buffer of at least 2 percent above the minimum basel iii supplementary leverage ratio of 3 percent, for a total of 5 percent. in light of the significantly higher risk - based capital rules for gsibs under basel iii, imposing a stricter leverage requirement on these firms is appropriate to help ensure that the leverage ratio remains a relevant backstop for these firms. and we have calibrated the proposed gsib leverage surcharge thresholds to raise the leverage standards for these firms by an amount that is roughly commensurate with the basel iii increase in the risk - based capital thresholds for these firms. we expect to finalize this proposal in the coming months. we also intend to incorporate in the united states the revisions to the basel iii leverage ratio recently agreed to by the basel committee. these changes would strengthen the ratio in a number of ways, including by introducing a much stricter treatment of credit derivatives. resolvability of gsibs our enhanced regulation of gsibs also includes efforts to improve their resolvability. the federal reserve ’ s resolvability efforts include work with the federal deposit insurance corporation ( fdic ) to improve the bankruptcy resolution planning of large banking firms and work to assist the fdic in making large banking firms more resolvable under the orderly liquidation authority ( ola ) of the dodd - frank act. the federal reserve is consulting with the fdic on a proposal that would require the largest, most complex u. s. banking firms to maintain a minimum amount of long - term unsecured debt outstanding at the holding company level. while minimum capital requirements are designed to cover losses up to a certain statistical probability, in the event that the equity of a financial firm is wiped out, successful resolution without taxpayer assistance would be most effectively accomplished if a firm has sufficient long - term, unsecured debt to absorb additional losses and to recapitalize the business transferred to a bis central bankers ’ speeches bridge operating company. the presence of debt explicitly identified for possible bail - in on a “ gone concern ” basis should help other creditors clarify their positions