July 9, 2013 - The Federal Reserve approved a final rule on July 2, 2013 to place the nation's largest banks under increasingly challenging capital requirements to guard the financial system from risks. The final rule establishes a stricter regulatory capital framework that requires banking organizations to hold more and higher-quality capital to act as a financial cushion to absorb losses and help banking organizations better withstand periods of financial stress. Fed officials hope to act in the coming months on four separate proposals aimed at the largest U.S. firms. This capital measure gauges equity against total assets and is favored by some regulators as a better measure of a bank's ability to withstand stress. Regulators are also working on a requirement that these banks hold a minimum amount of long-term debt, a separate charge based on a firm's reliance on short-term funding, and a special surcharge agreed upon by international regulators.