The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday announced the extension of the comment period to October 22, 2012, on three proposals for bank capital rules.

"The comment period was extended to allow interested persons more time to understand, evaluate, and prepare comments on the proposals," the central bank said in a statement.

The Fed in June began to seek comments on the draft rules which would implement in the United States the Basel III regulatory capital reforms from the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and changes required by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Originally, comments were due by September 7, 2012.

Basel III is a comprehensive set of reform measures, which is considered as a global regulatory framework to strengthen regulation, supervision and risk management of the banking sector following the recent financial crisis.

The rules, proposed by the Fed, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, were intended to help ensure U.S. banks maintain strong capital positions, enabling them to continue lending to creditworthy households and businesses even after unforeseen losses and during severe economic downturns, the Fed noted.

The new standards were tailored for banking organizations of different sizes. For those with total consolidated assets of 500 million U.S. dollars or more, a new minimum common equity ratio of 4.5 percent of risk-weighted assets would apply, in consistence with the Basel framework.