The Federal Reserve announced on Friday that it will allow the nation’s big banks to resume share buybacks in the first quarter of 2021 subject to certain rules and that the industry fared well in a second round of stress tests.
Dividends will continue to be capped, the Fed said, and the sum total of a bank’s dividends and repurchases in the first quarter cannot exceed the average quarterly profit from the four most recent quarters.
Share repurchases are important for the industry, typically making up about 70% of the industry’s capital payouts to shareholders.
JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank by assets, announced in the minutes after the Fed’s test results that its board had approved a new share repurchase program of $30 billion starting in 2021.
“We will continue to maintain a fortress balance sheet that allows us to safely deploy capital by investing in and growing our businesses, supporting consumers and businesses, paying a sustainable dividend, and returning any remaining excess capital to shareholders,” CEO Jamie Dimon said in a release.
Bank stocks rose across the board in after-hours trading with JPMorgan up 5.3%, Goldman Sachs up 4.4% and Wells Fargo up 3.5%.
The announcement, though not a complete unwind of the Fed’s restrictions, signaled that officials are increasingly satisfied with the amount of capital the largest U.S. banks have been able to compile over the course of 2020.
Fed Vice Chair for Supervision, Randal Quarles, offered positive remarks and said the capital restrictions the central bank put in place are working.
“The banking system has been a source of strength during the past year and today’s stress test results confirm that large banks could continue to lend to households and businesses even during a sharply adverse future turn in the economy,” Quarles said in a press release.
Bolstered capital requirements will not be reset in an effort to ensure sufficient safeguards for unexpected losses, according to the Fed’s report. Senior Fed officials said that large banks have managed to build key capital ratios and loss absorption capacity even while setting aside about $100 billion in loan-loss reserves.