September 29, 2026
For release at 4:00 p.m. EDT
WASHINGTON—In a joint announcement issued late Monday afternoon, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Federal Reserve Board released their official feedback letters regarding the resolution plans submitted by 15 major banking organizations. According to the regulatory agencies, the comprehensive review of these critical submissions—collectively known in the financial sector as "living wills"—yielded positive results, with regulators identifying no shortcomings or deficiencies across any of the reviewed plans.
The joint evaluation, conducted by staff from both the central bank and the federal deposit insurer, focused on resolution plans that the financial institutions formally submitted in October 2025. These plans are designed to outline a clear, orderly strategy for how a large banking organization would manage its own wind-down, restructuring, or bankruptcy in the event of severe financial distress or systemic failure, all without triggering wider contagion across the broader economy or requiring taxpayer-funded bailouts.
The scope of the recent evaluation encompassed 15 distinct banking organizations, each representing institutions with total consolidated assets exceeding $250 billion. These institutions form a crucial pillar of the domestic and global financial architecture, making their contingency planning a matter of paramount importance for federal regulators charged with maintaining macroeconomic stability and protecting the integrity of the financial system.
Alongside the clean assessments delivered to the 15 major institutions, the regulatory agencies also provided a significant update regarding a legacy supervisory matter involving international banking giant BNP Paribas. The Federal Reserve and the FDIC formally determined that a specific shortcoming previously identified in the institution’s 2021 resolution plan submission has now been satisfactorily resolved. This finding closes out that particular chapter of remediation for the bank, signaling that its internal planning and risk management frameworks have successfully met the rigorous standards set by U.S. banking authorities.
The publication of these feedback letters marks the latest milestone in the ongoing post-crisis regulatory framework governing systemically important financial institutions. Under long-standing statutory requirements, large banking organizations are periodically mandated to draft and submit detailed blueprints that map out their corporate structure, interconnections, critical operations, and financial resources. These documents provide regulators with a roadmap to understand how a complex financial institution can be resolved under bankruptcy laws or other applicable insolvency regimes in an orderly fashion, minimizing disruption to the financial markets and ensuring the continuous provision of vital financial services to consumers and businesses.
The successful review without enforcement actions, shortcomings, or formal deficiencies reflects a period of sustained alignment between major banking institutions and their primary domestic regulators concerning recovery and resolution preparedness. While the 2025 submission cycle subjected these institutions to rigorous scrutiny, the outcome demonstrates that large-scale banking organizations have continued to refine and strengthen their internal crisis management capabilities, asset valuations, and operational continuity playbooks since the framework was significantly overhauled following previous financial sector reforms.
With the feedback letters now publicly available, the 15 banking organizations will continue their ongoing compliance and planning cycles as they prepare for future resolution submissions, while the Federal Reserve and the FDIC maintain their continuous oversight of systemic risk across the United States banking sector.
