http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2013/04/02/f-rfa-macdonald-canada-cyprus-banks.html?cmp=rss

What Ottawa intends to propose — the concept has been discussed for a few years now in the rarefied circles of monetary experts — is the creation of a new type of higher-risk bank bond known as "contingent capital."

The bondholder would enjoy a higher-than-normal return, maybe even a much higher-than-normal return.

But it would be understood that in the event of a threatened failure, the bond would be converted to shares, meaning potentially a total loss for the bondholder, and a source of capital for the bank.

Think of it as a kind of pre-approved loan for the bank itself.