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Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen reiterated before the Senate Banking Committee Tuesday that the Fed believes it can be "patient" in normalizing monetary policy and said the Federal Open Market Committee is unlikely to raise the federal funds rate for at least the next couple of meetings.

"Provided that labor market conditions continue to improve and further improvement is expected, the Committee anticipates that it will be appropriate to raise the target range for the federal funds rate when, on the basis of incoming data, the Committee is reasonably confident that inflation will move back over the medium term toward our 2 percent objective," she said in her opening remarks. The FOMC meets next in March, late April and June.

NAFCU Chief Economist and Director of Research Curt Long said the FOMC's January meeting minutes indicate the panel doesn't foresee a rise in the fed funds rate target until its mid-June meeting, "at the earliest."

Yellen delivered the Fed's semiannual report to the committee on Tuesday. Today, she will deliver a similar report to the House Financial Services Committee.

The Fed chair fielded numerous questions from panel members in Tuesday's hearing. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., noting the Dodd-Frank Act's $50 billion-asset threshold regarding systemic risk, said an Office of Financial Research study says systemic risk is concentrated in the largest institutions and that smaller institutions don't pose a risk.

Yellen, in reply, said the Dodd-Frank Act gives the Fed flexibility to regulate the largest institutions differently than smaller institutions. She said the largest and most systemically significant institutions have higher capital standards than smaller institutions that also may have more than $50 billion in assets.