Risk-Based Capital Guidelines: Market Risk; Alternatives to Credit Ratings for Debt and Securitization Positions — 2011-12-21 [2011-32073]

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.