By Michelle Price
WASHINGTON, June 28 (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank AG's DBKGn.DE U.S. subsidiary failed on Thursday the second part of the U.S. Federal Reserve's annual stress tests due to "material weaknesses" in its data capabilities and capital planning controls.
The Fed board's unanimous objection to Deutsche Bank's U.S. capital plan marks another blow for the German lender, whose financial health globally has been under intense scrutiny in recent months. Bank last week cleared the Fed's easier first hurdle that measures its capital levels against a severe recession scenario. Fed's second test focuses on the bank's capital plan.
"Concerns include material weaknesses in the firm's data capabilities and controls supporting its capital planning process, as well as weaknesses in its approaches and assumptions used to forecast revenues and losses under stress," the Fed said in a statement.
While failing the U.S. stress test would not likely affect the banks' ability to pay dividends to shareholders, which are typically paid out at the group level, it will require Deutsche Bank to make changes to its U.S. operations.
It also means the bank would not be able to make any distributions to its German parent without the Fed's approval.
The newly created U.S. subsidiaries of six foreign lenders, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse Group AG CSGN.S , UBS Group AG UBSG.S , BNP Paribas SA BNPP.PA , Barclays Plc BARC.L and Royal Bank of Canada RY.TO , went through the test for the second time this year had their results publicly released for the first time.
Deutsche Bank's results cover DB USA Corp, a holding company with $133 billion in assets, according to Deutsche Bank's March filings. This includes all of Deutsche Bank's non-branch U.S. assets, including its mortgage lending and debt financing subsidiary, and its sizable Wall Street broker-dealer trading business.
CONDITIONAL APPROVALS
The Fed otherwise approved the capital plans for 34 lenders, allowing them to use the extra capital for stock buybacks, dividends and other purposes.
These included household names like JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM) JPM.N , Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) C.N , Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) BAC.N and Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) & Co WFC.N , as well as major regional lenders like Capital One Financial Corp (NYSE:COF) COF.N , PNC Financial Services Group Inc (NYSE:PNC) PNC.N and U.S. Bancorp USB.N .
The country's top regulator said it conditionally approved the capital plans for Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS) GS.N , Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) MS.N whose capital levels had been adversely affected during the test by last year's changes to the U.S. tax code.
Those banks will maintain their capital distribution levels inline with those paid in recent years to bolster their capital cushion, the Fed said.
The Fed also said it had conditionally approved the capital plan for State Street Corp (NYSE:STT) STT.N , but that the bank needed to shore up its counterparty risk management and analysis.
<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Largest banks clear U.S. Fed's toughest annual stress tests
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