Under the new rule, it is mandatory for a global systemically important bank holding company (GSIB) to hold additional capital totaling $200bn, The Financial Times reported.
Eight US companies that are identified as GSIBs under the rule include the Bank of America; The Bank of New York Mellon; Citigroup; The Goldman Sachs Group; JPMorgan Chase & Co; Morgan Stanley; State Street; and Wells Fargo & Company.
The final rule establishes the criteria to identify a GSIB in addition to the methods used by them to calculate a risk-based capital surcharge.
The Federal Reserve chairman Janet Yellen said: "A key purpose of the capital surcharge is to require the firms themselves to bear the costs that their failure would impose on others."
"In practice, this final rule will confront these firms with a choice: they must either hold substantially more capital, reducing the likelihood that they will fail, or else they must shrink their systemic footprint, reducing the harm that their failure would do to our financial system."
GSIBs have to calculate their surcharges under two methods as per the final rule and use the higher of the two surcharges.
The first method considers the size, interconnectedness, cross-jurisdictional activity, substitutability, and complexity of the GSIB and the second method uses similar inputs.
Estimated surcharges for the eight GSIBs will range from 1.0 to 4.5% of each firm’s total risk-weighted assets.
The Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo said: "A set of graduated capital surcharges for the nation’s most systemically important financial institutions will be an especially important part of the strengthened regulatory framework we have constructed since the financial crisis.
"Like the higher leverage ratio requirements we will apply to these firms, they reflect the relatively new, but very significant, principle that the stringency of prudential standards should vary with the systemic importance of regulated firms."
The surcharges are expected to come into force on 1 January 2019.
Image: The Eccles Building in Washington, D.C., which serves as the Federal Reserve System’s headquarters. Photo: courtesy of AgnosticPreachersKid
