Under-the-radar announcement came out...........>

FED: Under-the-radar announcement came out after-market Friday (1745ET): the

Fed, FDIC and OCC eased (temporarily) a key rule, will now allow banks to choose

to exclude Tsys and deposits at the Fed from the calculation of the

supplementary leverage ratio. This is aimed at boosting credit to the private

sector. This aligns the bank regulators: previously just the Fed had done this

(on Apr 1), and just for holding companies, not all units of banks.

- Interestingly though there has been some push-back: Martin Gruenberg of the

FDIC Board of Directors voted against the rule, noting it will result in a

9%/$55bln reduction in the eight GSIBs' capital minimums.

- Ex-FDIC head Sheila Bair raised concerns as well on Twitter: "Very

disappointed that the FDIC and OCC followed the Fed to weaken the supplementary

leverage ratio, a key constraint on mega-banks use of excessive leverage....

Allowing banks to reduce capital minimums now is the wrong move...they should be

building, not reducing capital"

- Note, if they do change their supplementary leverage ratio calculation, banks

will require pre-approval of capital distributions (i.e. dividends).