The post-2008 financial crisis playbook just got a major revision. US regulators have loosened the Enhanced Supplementary Leverage Ratio, a rule designed to keep the biggest banks from overleveraging themselves into oblivion, and the result is an estimated $1.3 trillion in newly unlocked lending capacity for the world’s largest financial institutions.
That figure, estimated by S&P Global, represents the additional funds that banks like JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs can now deploy into the economy.
What changed and why it matters
The ESLR was born out of the wreckage of the 2008 financial crisis. It forced the biggest banks to hold a minimum amount of capital as a buffer against their total exposure, including low-risk assets like US Treasuries and repurchase agreements.
The updated rule, which went live on April 1, 2025, reduces the capital requirements banks must hold against those same low-risk assets. A final version of the measures is set for November 25, 2025. By treating Treasuries and repos as less risky for leverage calculation purposes, the change frees up enormous amounts of capital that was previously locked away.
