The Federal Reserve this month will take a step toward revealingmore about its oversight of the financial system, an area where thecentral bank has yet to match the strides it has taken towardtransparency in monetary policy.

With the scheduled publication of annual stress-test findings inMarch, the Fed will for the first time describe how rising interestrates could affect the health of the nation's biggest banks.

Last year, the Fed didn't disclose results of a similar test,even though the U.S. Treasury's Office of Financial Research hadflagged interest-rate risk as the one code-red concern in thefinancial system. Almost four years after the Dodd-Frank Act gavethe Fed unprecedented authority over the banking industry,Democrats and Republicans alike in Congress are demanding morecommunication on financial risk.