Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, told Congress today that the Fed is working on a more extensive bank stress test.

Last spring the Federal Reserve led the successful Supervisory Capital Assessment Program, popularly known as the bank stress tests. An important lesson of that program was that combining on-site bank examinations with a suite of quantitative and analytical tools can greatly improve comparability of the results and better identify potential risks. In that spirit, the Federal Reserve is also in the process of developing an enhanced quantitative surveillance program for large bank holding companies. Supervisory information will be combined with firm-level, market-based indicators and aggregate economic data to provide a more complete picture of the risks facing these institutions and the broader financial system. Making use of the Federal Reserve’s unparalleled breadth of expertise, this program will apply a multidisciplinary approach that involves economists, specialists in particular financial markets, payments systems experts, and other professionals, as well as bank supervisors.