In certain situations, the proposal changes the presentation of the impairment charge, splitting it up into two pieces. First, the amount of the impairment related to just the credit losses will be reflected on the income statement and will reduce net income. Second, the amount of the impairment related to all other factors will be shown in other comprehensive income in the equity section of the balance sheet. There will be a "gross" presentation of this on the income statement, one which will clearly display the total reduction in fair value below cost, the amount offsetting it that is being charged to other comprehensive income, and the net amount that is being recorded through net income.

Many balance sheet metrics used to analyze banks, such as Tangible Common Equity, should be relatively unaffected by this proposal, though earnings, other comprehensive income and retained earnings would be impacted. The Board did add significant new disclosures as part of this proposal as well.

Generally, these new proposals will be effective for the second quarter, though companies may elect to adopt them for the first quarter. However, we indicated that if a company wants to adopt the impairment proposal in the first quarter, it must also adopt the FAS 157 fair value in inactive markets proposal.

These proposals should be considered in the context of the larger ongoing joint project with the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) to reconsider accounting for financial instruments. A proposal on this project is expected to be issued later this year.

*This sentence may be true for a HTM security but it is not true for an AFS security. For an AFS security an impairment charge is required anytime the security's fair value is below cost since the measurement attribute for AFS securities is fair value - it just maybe that the charge would go into OCI—instead of earnings if it is determined to be not other than temporary.

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