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Washington • Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen says the financial health of the nation's banking system has strengthened considerably since the 2008 financial crisis, in part because of tougher regulations passed by Congress in 2010.
Yellen is telling the House Financial Services Committee that the Fed wants to make sure that the new requirements keep the country's largest banks from failing and destabilizing the entire financial system, while avoiding undue burdens on smaller institutions.
She says that as part of that effort, the Fed is considering easing requirements for annual stress tests for institutions that have less than $250 billion in assets.
That proposal is not expected to do much to alleviate unhappiness among lawmakers who feel the Fed's new regulations are imposing too much of a burden on community banks.