Banks in Australia will have until the end of 2018 to prepare for a final form of the "unquestionably strong" capital standards for the sector, APRA chair Wayne Byres told a Finsia forum in Melbourne on Friday.Byres used the speech to update the industry on the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority's progress on reforms on capital standards, as recommended by the Financial System Inquiry and buttressed by ongoing work of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.He made it clear that the industry and investors must plan to hold still more capital."Capital accumulation remains the appropriate course for most ADIs," he said."While there's time for the changes to be worked through, that shouldn't lead to complacency in the current environment."With sensible capital planning the actual implementation of any changes should be able to be managed in an orderly fashion."Byres said 2017  would be "a year of consultation.""We don't expect to have final standards before this time next year. And even if that is the case, they would not take effect until at least a year after that."Reinforcing themes long stated by APRA, Byres said "in Australia, we have long applied more robust requirements" than those devised by the Basel Committee.This, he said, is "an approach that has stood us in good stead. Even without the reinforcing view of the FSI, there's no reason why we would take a different path now."I mention this to dampen any enthusiasm that might be generated when the new [Basel] rules are released, by calculating what would happen if APRA was to simply apply the new Basel framework to Australian ADIs."I can tell you the answer now - it would produce a material reduction in capital requirements. Before anyone gets too excited by that, I can also tell you we won't be pursuing that course."