Administration Approves Bank Book Cooking

From the Federal Register today:

[Federal Register: January 28, 2010 (Volume 75, Number 18)]
[Rules and Regulations]
[Page 4635-4654]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr28ja10-13]

[[Page 4635]]

SUMMARY: The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) (collectively, the agencies) are amending their general risk- based and advanced risk-based capital adequacy frameworks by adopting a final rule that eliminates the exclusion of certain consolidated asset- backed commercial paper programs from risk-weighted assets; provides for an optional two-quarter implementation delay followed by an optional two-quarter partial implementation of the effect on risk- weighted assets that will result from changes to U.S. generally accepted accounting principles; provides for an optional two-quarter delay, followed by an optional two-quarter phase-in, of the application of the agencies’ regulatory limit on the inclusion of the allowance for loan and lease losses (ALLL) in tier 2 capital for the portion of the ALLL associated with the assets a banking organization consolidates as a result of changes to U.S. generally accepted accounting principles; and provides a reservation of authority to permit the agencies to require a banking organization to treat entities that are not consolidated under accounting standards as if they were consolidated for risk-based capital purposes, commensurate with the risk relationship of the banking organization to the structure. The delay and subsequent phase-in periods of the implementation will apply only to the agencies’ risk-based capital requirements, not the leverage ratio requirement.

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