Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr on Tuesday said the U.S. central bank is at the beginning of exploring how it can move more swiftly when its bank regulators spot issues at banks outside of crisis periods, Reuters reported. "We're not an institution that moves quickly on supervisory issues," Barr said in a panel conversation held at the New York Fed that included the bank's president, John Williams. "We tend to have a culture that makes it difficult for the institution to act quickly with respect to supervision" because those that work at the Fed are consensus driven, want to make sure they have enough evidence in place to support decisions and are keeping an eye toward due process issues faced by firms, the policymaker said. "We're great in a crisis," Barr noted, but he'd like to see some of that swiftness take place in less turbulent times. He said the Fed is looking at what it takes for central-bank bank regulators to move more swiftly to spot and address issues at banks. Barr also said that while the Fed may stress test financial firms to see how they would deal with various adverse scenarios, a more broad "reverse stress test" might also come in handy.
