US banks add $130bn in carve-out assets as SLR relief ends

JP Morgan led the top US banks in increasing their stock of US Treasuries and excess reserves undeterred by their impending reinclusion in the leverage exposure calculation

Six of the eight US systemic banks continued to pile on US Treasuries and excess reserves in the first three months of the year, despite the impending end of the Federal Reserve relief for leverage exposure.

Such holdings returned to weigh on the banks’ supplementary leverage ratios (SLRs) on April 1, after the Fed revoked permission to exclude them from the denominator.

On aggregate, the banks increased their stock of Treasuries and excess reserves by $130 billion to $2.3 trillion in the