In the wake of the financial crisis that rocked the economy, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill. This law requires the U.S. Federal Reserve to subject the nation's largest banks to a series of tests designed to calculate their liquidity and solvency in times of economic uncertainty. According to its website, the Fed did not object to the any of the 28 banks' capital plans presented during stress testing. However, Bank of America is required to submit a new capital plan to address certain weaknesses. In its findings, the Fed discovered U.S. firms have more than doubled their capital reserves since 2009, with the common equity capital ratio growing from 5.5 percent to 12.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014. Overall, this represents an increase from $641 billion to $1.1 trillion in capital holdings.
