The Federal Reserve will hold a meeting to discuss easing bank leverage requirements

The Federal Reserve will hold a meeting to discuss plans to ease leverage requirements for big banks, which is expected to kick off a broad plan to rethink bank rules. The Fed announced that it will hold a board meeting on June 25 to discuss changes to the so-called "supplemental leverage ratio," which requires banks to set aside a capital base against assets regardless of risk. It will be the first meeting since Fed Governor Bowman was confirmed as the Fed's top regulatory official. Easing leverage requirements could be the first of several Fed plans to loosen rules, with Bowman laying out an ambitious plan to reform the way the Fed regulates and oversees some of the nation's largest and most complex banks. The Fed did not provide any details of the proposals it is considering, but banks have been demanding for years that supplemental leverage be revised, possibly to dispense with traditionally safe assets or to modify the formula used to calculate leverage. Banks say supplemental leverage could actually hamper their ability to access the intermediate Treasury market during times of stress.