The world's 100 biggest banks all meet the tougher capital requirements agreed during the financial crisis and are closer to complying with new liquidity rules, global regulators said on September 15. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision said that if the new Basel III capital rules had been fully in force last December, all the top banks would have met minimum requirements.
The rules come into full force in 2019 but regulatory and market pressure has prompted lenders to comply sooner to dispel any doubts about their health.
Basel also requires banks to hold a buffer of bonds, known as a liquidity coverage ratio (LCR), to withstand market shocks for up to a month without outside help.
The LCR is being introduced from January in stages, rising to 100 percent or full compliance by 2019.
The Basel Committee said that for the top 100 banks, the weighted average LCR was 125 percent in June 2014, meaning that it was above the minimum. That compared with 121 percent six months earlier.
Rules for an additional buffer of debt, known as a net stable funding ratio (NSFR) to cover longer-term liabilities, were finalised by Basel in October last year and the banks still have some way to go before full compliance, which is not formally due until January 2018.
By December last year 75 percent of the top banks reported an NSFR that met or exceeded 100 percent, creating a shortfall of 526 billion euros ($593.01 billion), a small percentage of total assets of the banks involved.
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