Shares of the biggest U.S. banks rallied Monday, a day after the international Basel Committee on Banking Supervision outlined plans to tighten the rules for bank capital.

The new rules will force financial institutions to hold bigger cushions against potential losses, which should trim profits. But many U.S. banks already appear to be in compliance with the rules, which are less strict than investors initially feared. What’s more, bankers won’t feel the full force of them for years.

Accordingly, big bank stocks rallied Monday, with Citi  trading above $4 for the first time in a month and Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase  each rising 4%.

Investors were focusing Monday on which banks will be the first to start raising their dividends, which were slashed in 2008 as firms struggled to conserve capital.

“We expect U.S. banks will increase dividends and initiate stock buybacks in 2011,” Morgan Stanley analyst Betsy Graseck wrote in a note to clients. “We may even get some starting in 4Q10.”

She said dividend raises could push the big bank stocks higher, though it remains unclear when regulators will give the all clear on that front. The Federal Reserve is expected to issue capital rules in late November, and executives such as JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon have stressed that they aren’t hurrying to boost their payouts, as much as they would surely like to do so.