Banks can withstand even extreme economic turmoil, the Fed notes

A severe spike in inflation. A drop in the value of the dollar. The collapse of their largest customers.

America’s largest banks could survive even these bleak economic scenarios, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the Federal Reserve.

The results are particularly notable because, in addition to the Fed’s annual stress tests, this year for the first time, the industry’s top regulator subjected major lenders to an enhanced hypothetical test that reflected and amplified a number of news events, including the dismantling of a mutual fund that ultimately contributed to the fall of Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse.

The industry has crossed the higher lines, with as close to a clean bill of health as its leaders could have hoped.

“The banking system is capable of withstanding a funding stress under the moderate and severe economic conditions included in the exploratory analysis,” the Fed concluded.

About 31 banks — all with more than $100 billion in assets — also passed the more routine annual stress tests, as have become common in recent years since the metrics were introduced after the 2008 financial crisis. Those tests measure banks’ expected performance during economic recessions, high unemployment, declines in housing prices and other scenarios.

Real estate in particular has been a sticking point for banks, as many major lenders have foregone loans for office buildings and other assets in an era of higher interest rates and low occupancy rates for commercial space.

Still, the Fed found that all banks held sufficient capital, or the money they need to ensure stability and provide a financial cushion against losses.

The analysis is likely to be welcomed by Wall Street’s biggest banks, which have united to oppose an international effort to raise their capital requirements, which they say will limit their ability to lend and ultimately raise costs for consumers . Finalization of that plan, known as the “Basel III endgame,” has long been delayed, and Fed officials have said they expect to modify it further before it is adopted.

It took just nine minutes after the publication of this year’s test for the Financial Services Forum, a bank lobby group, to issue a statement saying the results showed the capital requirement increases were not warranted because the largest U.S. lenders “are still able to support the economy in the face of a severe economic downturn.”

A Fed official, speaking on condition of anonymity to reporters on Wednesday afternoon, said the new results do not change the Basel III plans.

Because banks pass the test benches so routinely, the usefulness of the stress tests themselves has been questioned.

This week, left-wing advocacy group Better Markets, which generally favors more regulation, derided the exams as “stressless” and insufficiently challenging. Separately, Daniel K. Tarullo, a former Federal Reserve governor, said last month that the regulator should consider less predictable tests.