Fed Says U.S. Bank Capital Won’t Be Affected by S&P Action

Standard & Poor’s decision to cut the U.S. credit rating won’t affect the capital positions of the nation’s banks, regulators said yesterday.

Banks, which hold Treasuries as a form of capital, won’t need to build larger cushions to protect against possible losses from soured loans, a group of banking regulators, including the Fed and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., said in a statement in Washington.