Commonwealth Bank yesterday said it has decided to cancel the share buyback it had agreed to undertake to "neutralise" its dividend reinvestment plan.CBA said this would increase capital by around $400 million. Shareholders had opted to reinvest $500 million of the interim dividend announced last month (and a program that has no discount attached). CBA had bought back $100 million and won't proceed with plans agreed a month ago to buy back the rest.The genesis of the decision to hold on to this capital appears to be the bleak assessment of other banks and debt and equity investors that the bank's managing director Ralph Norris and chief financial officer David Craig encountered in separate visits to Europe and North America last week.The $400 million in capital is comparatively small beer, and equal to 1.6 per cent of the bank's capital base of $25.1 billion at December 2007.On the other hand it's sufficient to fund growth of one third in the bank's housing book, for example.Investors chipped in $1.2 billion in calendar 2007 under CBA's dividend reinvestment plan.The bank's explanation for the capital raising is that it will "enable the group to support our customers and consider opportunities that may arise".Craig said CBA had completed about $20 billion of its $24 billion target for long-term funding this financial year.Lyn Cobley, CBA's treasurer, said the bank undertook a lot of three year and four year funding through private placements and thus the bank's duration of its liabilities - with an average of more than three years - continued to match the profile of its assets.Other banks also raising capital, though somewhat under the radar, include Suncorp ($315 million), National Australia Bank (at least NZ$350 million through a tier one hybrid being sold by Bank of New Zealand) and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, which has never lost the appetite to raise capital through its DRP.