“Large bank holding companies have considerably improved their capital planning processes in recent years, but have more work to do to enhance their practices for assessing the capital they need to withstand stressful economic and financial conditions, the Federal Reserve said in a paper released on Monday.  In the paper, the Federal Reserve discussed in detail its expectations for internal capital planning at large bank holding companies and described the range of practices it has observed at these companies during the past three Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) exercises.  The Federal Reserve conducts the CCAR annually to help ensure that companies have forward-looking capital planning processes that account for their unique risks and result in sufficient capital to enable the institutions to continue lending to households and businesses during times of economic and financial stress.  The paper, Capital Planning at Large Bank Holding Companies: Supervisory Expectations and Range of Current Practice, is intended to promote better capital planning at bank holding companies generally, and to provide greater clarity on the standards against which those practices are evaluated as part of the CCAR exercise.  In particular, the Federal Reserve emphasized that bank holding companies, when considering their capital needs, should focus on the specific risks they could face under potentially stressful conditions.”