US banks may face mortgage capital requirements under new Basel Accord rules.

PANews reported on February 16th that, according to Jinshi, U.S. lending institutions may face new mortgage requirements as the Federal Reserve is about to release a highly anticipated bank capital proposal related to Basel III. Michelle Bowman, the Federal Reserve's chief banking regulator, stated that this new measure related to residential real estate will consider increasing the "risk sensitivity" of mortgage capital requirements on banks' books. One approach is to use loan-to-value ratios to determine the applicable risk weights for residential real estate exposures, rather than using a uniform risk weight. "This change could better align capital requirements with actual risk, support on-balance-sheet lending by banks, and potentially reverse the trend of mortgage activity shifting to non-bank institutions over the past 15 years," Bowman said.