The Department of the Treasury, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Reserve have recently put into place several programs designed to promote financial stability and to mitigate procyclical effects of the current market conditions. These programs make new capital widely available to U.S. financial institutions, broaden and increase the guarantees on bank deposit accounts and certain liabilities and provide backup liquidity to U.S. banking organizations. These efforts are designed to strengthen the capital foundation of our financial system and improve the overall functioning of credit markets.

The ongoing financial and economic stress has highlighted the crucial role that prudent bank lending practices play in promoting the nation's economic welfare. The recent policy actions are designed to help support responsible lending activities of banking organizations, enhance their ability to fund such lending and enable banking organizations to better meet the credit needs of households and business. At this critical time, it is imperative that all banking organizations and their regulators work together to ensure that the needs of creditworthy borrowers are met.

As discussed below, to support this objective, consistent with safety and soundness principles and existing supervisory standards, each individual banking organization needs to ensure the adequacy of its capital base, engage in appropriate loss mitigation strategies and foreclosure prevention and reassess the incentive implications of its compensation policies.

Lending to Creditworthy Borrowers
The agencies expect all banking organizations to fulfill their fundamental role in the economy as intermediaries of credit to businesses, consumers and other creditworthy borrowers. Moreover, as a result of problems in financial markets, the economy will likely become increasingly reliant on banking organizations to provide credit formerly provided or facilitated by purchasers of securities. Lending to creditworthy borrowers provides sustainable returns for the lending organization and is constructive for the economy as a whole.

Strengthening Capital
Maintaining a strong capital position complements and facilitates a banking organization's capacity and willingness to lend and bolsters its ability to withstand uncertain market conditions. Banking organizations should focus on effective and efficient capital planning and longer-term capital maintenance. An effective capital planning process requires a banking organization to assess both the risks to which it is exposed and the risk management processes in place to manage and mitigate those risks; evaluate its capital adequacy relative to its risks; and consider the potential impact on earnings and capital from economic downturns. Further, an effective capital planning process requires a banking organization to recognize losses on bank assets and activities in a timely manner; maintain adequate loan loss provisions; and adhere to prudent dividend policies.

Working with Mortgage Borrowers
The agencies expect banking organizations to work with existing borrowers to avoid preventable foreclosures, which can be costly to both the organizations and to the communities they serve, and to mitigate other potential mortgage-related losses. To this end, banking organizations need to ensure that their mortgage servicing operations are sufficiently funded and staffed to work with borrowers while implementing effective risk-mitigation measures.

Structuring Compensation
Poorly-designed management compensation policies can create perverse incentives that can ultimately jeopardize the health of the banking organization. Management compensation policies should be aligned with the long-term prudential interests of the institution, should provide appropriate incentives for safe and sound behavior, and should structure compensation to prevent short-term payments for transactions with long-term horizons. Management compensation practices should balance the ongoing earnings capacity and financial resources of the banking organization, such as capital levels and reserves, with the need to retain and provide proper incentives for strong management. Further, it is important for banking organizations to have independent risk management and control functions.

The agencies will continue to take steps to promote programs that foster financial stability and mitigate procyclical effects of the current market conditions. However, regardless of their participation in particular programs, all banking organizations are expected to adhere to the principles in this statement. We will work with banking organizations to facilitate their active participation in those programs, consistent with safe and sound banking practices, and thus to support their central role in providing credit to support the health of the U.S. economy.

See the press release for full details.

Press release

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