The federal banking regulatory agencies on Monday released new online tools intended to help community banks estimate the potential effect on their capital ratios by the agencies' Basel III Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPR) and Standardized Approach NPR.

In June 2012, the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency approved joint proposals for comment that would revise their current regulatory capital standards. The public comment period for these proposals ends on Oct.22. The Basel III NPR focuses primarily on strengthening the level of regulatory capital requirements and improving the quality of capital. The Standardized Approach NPR proposes a number of enhancements to the risk-sensitivity of the agencies' capital standards.

The new online "calculators" are intended only to provide estimates, and are not to be relied upon as an indicator of the institution's actual regulatory capital ratios. They are not part of the NPRs, nor will they be part of any final rules the agencies may adopt.

The estimation tools can be found here.