The adoption by some banks of FAS 159, Fair Value Option for Financial Assets and Liabilities (FVO), affected commercial bank balance sheet data for April 4, 2007. The "Notes on the Data" section on page 14 of the H.8 Statistical Release contains information on the affected balance sheet items.Under FVO, banks generally have an irrevocable option to elect a fair value measurement for most financial assets and liabilities at their inception. In addition, at the time of FVO adoption, banks have a one-time option to convert a broad array of existing asset and liability items to a fair value measurement basis. A bank that elects to adopt FVO must also adopt FAS 157, Fair Value Measurements. For more information on FAS 159 and FAS 157, refer to www.fasb.org/st/summary/stsum159.shtml and www.fasb.org/st/summary/stsum157.shtml, respectively.
