Opening Statement by Chair Janet L. Yellen

Good afternoon. I'd like to welcome our guests to the Federal Reserve today as we take another step in addressing the risks that large financial institutions pose to U.S. financial stability.

The final rule before the Board would implement more of the Dodd-Frank Act's enhanced prudential standards for large domestic and foreign banking organizations. As the financial crisis demonstrated, the sudden failure or near failure of large financial institutions can have destabilizing effects on the financial system and harm the broader economy. And, as the crisis also highlighted, the traditional framework for supervising and regulating major financial institutions and assessing risks contained material weaknesses. The final rule would help address these sources of vulnerability.

In developing the requirements for both domestic and foreign banking organizations, the Board has sought to strengthen U.S. financial stability and reinforce its longstanding policy of national treatment and equality of competitive opportunity between the U.S. operations of foreign banking organizations and U.S. banking firms.

I look forward to today's discussion of this important initiative. Let me turn the meeting over to Governor Tarullo.