On March 19, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) proposed changes in key definitions that control how much money large banks will pay in order to maintain their insurance coverage from FDIC. The Federal Deposit Insurance Act (the FDI Act) requires that the deposit insurance assessment system be risk-based . It defines a risk-based system as one based on an institution’s probability of causing a loss to the Deposit Insurance Fund (the DIF), taking into account the composition and concentration of the institution’s assets and liabilities and any other factors that the FDIC determines are relevant, the likely amount of any such loss, and the revenue needs of the DIF. The FDI Act allows the FDIC to "establish separate risk-based assessment systems for large and small members of the Deposit Insurance Fund." Generally, "large" banks have more than $10 billion in assets.

On February 7, 2011, the FDIC Board adopted a final rule that amended its assessment regulations, by, among other things, establishing a new methodology for determining assessment rates for large and highly complex institutions (the February rule).