In the United States we have as a first line of defense we have a risk weighted capital ratio which is not a straight leverage ratio, it's an amount of capital we have to hold against assets where we have to hold more capital against riskier assets, which makes sense. The risk of the asset, the more capital you want to hold and we are, we the Federal Reserve and the other bank regulators are working very actively with other regulators around the world to strengthen the capital requirements. We've already made proposals to do that. We are going to get assessments from the banks about how big an impact that would have. And it's our intention to move forward with more conservative higher capital requirements. So that's the first thing.
The leverage ratio is kind of a back stop, a fail safe if you will, because it's a very simple ratio, it's just a ratio of capital against total assets without making much or any distinction between Treasury's versus loans to small businesses for example. And the United States has long had a leverage ratio as a backstop to our capital rules.
One of the interesting things that appears to be coming out of the international negotiations is that the U.S. leverage ratio, which never was used abroad now looks like it will be adopted by other countries as well, which is good for us because it'll create a more even playing field and create greater safety in the global banking system as well as here.
So the leverage ratio is part of these negotiations and discussions we're having internationally and there are proposals on the table. We haven't yet gone through the whole process of doing the quantitative analysis to figure out exactly what the right number is, so I can't tell you off hand you know what the final number will be, but we're certainly looking to make the leverage ratio part of the more conservative approach to making sure that banks have enough capital that they can absorb even in a severe crisis like one we've had they can absorb their losses.
So yes, that will be part of our proposal.