On March 23, 2015, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced the completion of reviews of annual resolution plans or "living wills" submitted in 2014 by three foreign banking organizations and gave feedback letters to each bank. The FBOs included BNP Paribas, HSBC Holdings plc and The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc.
The FDIC announced that the living wills were "not credible" and that 2015 plans would be required to demonstrate significant progress. Common shortcomings identified across the FBOs included: (i) unrealistic assumptions about behavior of various parties (i.e., customers, counterparties, investors, or regulators); and (ii) insufficient analysis on the inter-connectedness between banks. The Federal Reserve Board and the FDIC will expect that the annual plans submitted by the three banks on or before December 31, 2015, demonstrate that the banks are making significant progress to address the shortcomings identified, and are taking actions to improve their resolvability under the US Bankruptcy Code.
The press release is available at: http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/bcreg/20150323a.htm.
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