International, voluntary regulatory capital standards for banks are developed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. The most recent round of updates, referred to as Basel III, was begun in 2009 and has been in an implementation cycle since 2013.

From 2015–2019, the risk-based capital category High Volatility Commercial Real Estate Exposures (HVCRE) for commercial acquisition, development, and construction (ADC) loans was the standard. Under it, the risk-weight for an ADC loan was 150%—an increase from the pre-HVCRE level of 100%.  Legislation was introduced in the 115th Congress to resolve confusion among lenders related to the application of the HVCRE risk-weight and its exceptions, which passed the House of Representatives but was never taken up by the Senate. However, in 2017 the Federal Banking Agencies (the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, and the OCC) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to replace HVCRE with a new risk-weight category—High Volatility Acquisition, Development, and Construction, or HVADC. The proposed rule was made final in 2019, and went into effect in 2020. This new category has a lower risk-weight of 130%, and removed several exceptions found in HVCRE, thus increasing the number of loans it applies to.

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