On July 20, 2015, the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) released a final rule establishing risk-based capital surcharges for the largest, most systemically important US bank holding companies to further strengthen their capital positions. Under the rule, a firm that is identified as a globally systemically important bank holding company (GSIB) will have to hold additional capital to increase its resiliency. The FRB created these requirements because of the greater threat GSIBs pose to the financial stability of the United States.

The following eight US firms are currently expected to be identified as GSIBs under the final rule:

The final rule establishes the criteria for identifying a GSIB and requires GSIBs to calculate their surcharges under two methods and use the higher of the two surcharges.

The first method is based on the framework agreed to by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and considers a GSIB's:

The second method uses similar inputs, but is calibrated to result in significantly higher surcharges and replaces substitutability with a measure of the firm's reliance on short-term wholesale funding.

Under the final rule and using the most recent available data, estimated surcharges for the eight GSIBs range from 1% to 4.5% of each firm's total risk-weighted assets.

The surcharges will be phased in beginning on January 1, 2016 and will become fully effective on June 1, 2019.