12 CFR 3 - MINIMUM CAPITAL RATIOS; ISSUANCE OF DIRECTIVES

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board), and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) (collectively, the agencies) are amending the advanced risk-based capital adequacy standards (advanced approaches rules) in a manner that is consistent with certain provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the Act), and the general risk-based capital rules to provide limited flexibility consistent with section 171(b) of the Act for recognizing the relative risk of certain assets generally not held by depository institutions.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board), and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) (collectively, the agencies) are seeking comment on an amendment to the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPR) to modify the agencies' market risk capital rules, published in the Federal Register on January 11, 2011 (January 2011 NPR). The January 2011 NPR did not include the methodologies adopted by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) for calculating the standard specific risk capital requirements for certain debt and securitization positions, because the BCBS methodologies generally rely on credit ratings. Under section 939A of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the Act), all federal agencies must remove references to and requirements of reliance on credit ratings from their regulations and replace them with appropriate alternatives for evaluating creditworthiness. In this NPR, the agencies are proposing to incorporate into the proposed market risk capital rules certain alternative methodologies for calculating specific risk capital requirements for debt and securitization positions that do not rely on credit ratings. The agencies expect to finalize this proposal, together with the January 2011 NPR, in the coming months after receipt and consideration of comments.