The USD and yen are pulling back against major currencies on Monday in the wake of some well received bank capitalization rules from the Basel Committee.

Dubbed Basel III, the new standards include a new 7% capital ratio for financial institutions, 4.5% of which is allocated in common equity and 2.5% set aside in the event of unforeseen stress in the system.

The main highlight helping the markets is news that the measures will be phased in over an eight year period, eliminating fears that banks would have to raise the needed capital very quickly.

Those firms which fail to comply with the new measures will be banned from paying dividends, but will not be forced to raise additional cash.

The Committee also said that additional requirements could be levied on firms deemed too big to fail.

The news was very well received by the markets, with global equities rallying hard throughout the Asia-Pacific and European sessions, putting pressure on the U.S. dollar and yen as investors sought riskier assets abroad.

In particular, EUR/USD was up 1.1% on the day, trading between 1.2834 and 1.2673, while GBP/USD added 0.3%, trading between 1.5353 and 1.5488.

The commodity currencies were also doing well, with AUD/USD rising 0.6% after hitting its best levels since April, while USD/CAD declined 0.7%.

The yen continued to outperform the USD, though not by much, with USD/JPY declining 0.1% on the day, hitting an intraday low of 83.84.