The strength of the U.S. economy depends on a stable and resilient banking system that can support households, businesses, and communities through all economic conditions. Strong bank capital requirements are the foundation of that stability and resilience because a bank’s capital protects it against failure by absorbing losses while also supporting lending to hardworking Americans and their businesses, in good times and bad. Weak capital requirements (particularly for the largest banks) contributed to the 2008 crash and the worst global financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression—precisely why capital requirements were strengthened afterward. 

Wall Street Bank Capital Cushions

However, those hard-earned efforts to increase bank capital at the largest banks are being massively weakened. In fact, Wall Street’s leverage levels are returning toward to the ultra-weak levels those banks had just before the 2008 crash. The current leadership at the Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation are giving big banks and their army of lobbyists every item on their deregulation wish list, especially for bank capital requirements. Even worse, they claim that these changes benefit the real economy.  In reality, the changes primarily serve to increase profits and shareholder payouts at Wall Street banks and investment funds, benefiting the top 10 percent of Americans they predominantly serve. 

The banking agencies released three capital proposals in March 2026 that would significantly reduce requirements. Better Markets has submitted comprehensive comment letters to the banking agencies opposing most elements of the proposals. Better Markets estimates that the largest banks would see their capital requirements drop by $130 billion compared to current levels and by more than 25 percent relative to 2019, a significant erosion of their capacity to absorb losses in times of stress. These unjustified and reckless actions to weaken the capital rules put our economy at greater risk and do not serve Main Street. 

That’s why it is critical to continue fighting for strong capital requirements for the largest banks. Better Markets has worked extensively to show why strong capital requirements for the largest banks benefit Main Street Americans and community banks. Please see the links below for many of our resources and analysis on bank capital, organized by topic. 

Additional Resources

Overall Bank Capital Requirements

• Capital Rules for the Biggest Banks—the banking agencies have proposed unjustified capital reductions that would weaken financial stability and increase the risk of a financial crisis, failed to justify significant departures from minimum international standards, and relied on incomplete and unsupported impact analyses. Read our comment letter (June 18, 2026)
• Extra Capital Requirement for the Biggest Wall Street Banks—the Federal Reserve’s proposal would significantly weaken the extra capital buffer that is supposed to ensure the largest and most systemically important banks have enough capital to account for the risks they pose to the broader financial system. We provide a quantitative-based argument that the Federal Reserve has not accounted for systemic risk in light of the failure of Silicon Valley Bank. Read our comment letter (June 18, 2026)
• Capital Rules for All Other Banks—the agencies’ proposal would reduce capital requirements for many of the largest regional and super-regional banks, just three years after the nearly catastrophic 2023 regional bank failures, while relying on unsupported claims that lower capital requirements would increase lending. Read our comment letter (June 18, 2026)
• Recently proposed bank capital rules not only incentivize the biggest banks to do less lending to Main Street, but also further undermine the critical support for local businesses and households provided by community banks. Read our Fact Sheet (April 27, 2026) and watch our webinar (April 23, 2026).
• The so-called Basel III and GSIB surcharge proposals benefit the biggest Wall Street banks and hurt community banks and the Main Street economy, as we show in this Press release and Fact Sheet (March 19, 2026).
• The agencies are fulfilling the industry’s goal of bringing capital levels to 2007 levels, as demonstrated in this Press release  and  Fact Sheet (October 1, 2025).
• Strong bank capital requirements are necessary—read why in this Report  and Fact Sheet  (December 22, 2022).

Community Banks

• Banking agencies’ capital rules are making community banks targets for private equity predators (April 23, 2026).
• The deregulatory actions of the agencies since early 2025 are anti-community bank and anti-Main Street, as demonstrated in this Press release and Fact Sheet (January 20, 2026).
• The upside-down capital framework that favors the largest banks and disadvantages community banks is laid out in this Report (September 24, 2025).

Leverage Ratio

• The agencies’ final rule to cut large bank capital requirements via the enhanced supplementary leverage ratio proves they prioritize large banks over community banks, illustrated in this Press release (November 25, 2025).
• We lay out our opposition to the agencies’ proposal to cut large bank capital requirements via the enhanced supplementary leverage ratio in this Press release  and  comment letter  (August 26, 2025).

Stress Testing

• Stress tests are supposed to inform the American public about the actual financial health of the largest banks and make sure that these banks have enough capital to absorb their own losses—we describe the consequences when large bank stress tests and stress test capital requirements are gutted in this Press release and comment letter (February 20, 2026).  
• The Federal Reserve’s consecutive 11-year, 100% stress test pass rate proves current tests are stressless, ineffective, and endanger all Americans, as we describe in this Press release  (June 27, 2025).

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