Bank of England eyes growth with lighter bank capital reforms for UK lenders
BoE revises approach to mortgage, small business lending
New rules pushed back to Jan. 1, 2026, to aid implementation
Reeves says reforms will help banks support growth, investment
Adds comments from NatWest in paragraph 17, Forvis Mazars in paragraph 18, updates shares in paragraph 12
By Sinead Cruise
LONDON, Sept 12 (Reuters) -The Bank of England aims to roll out revised new rules on how much capital UK banks must set aside to cope with future crises, as it juggles efforts to shock-proof lenders while supporting growth and without hurting their global commercial interests.
The regulatory arm of the central bank said on Thursday it would make "substantial amendments" to some earlier proposed Basel bank capital reforms following consultation and evidence, which had highlighted "too much conservatism" and excessive costs or challenges to implementation.
The changes outlined will come into force on Jan. 1, 2026, instead of on July 1, 2025.
Financial regulators crafted the Basel III rules after the 2007-2009 global banking crisis forced taxpayers to bail out several undercapitalised banks.
The bulk of the Basel package is already in force across major lenders, with some remaining elements still to be implemented into national rulebooks.
"In terms of the capital impact, we think there will only be a very small impact on requirements, on average, across UK firms," Phil Evans, director of prudential policy, said in the speech.
The BoE is planning to lower its proposed capital requirements for lending to small and medium-sized businesses and for infrastructure projects.
It also plans to streamline the approach banks can take to mortgage lending, chiefly by simplifying how they value residential property.
Rules proposed earlier would have raised the capital banks needed to set aside against these activities, potentially crimping the supply of affordable credit to borrowers, investors and homeowners, senior industry sources had feared.
The BoE estimates the impact of the new proposed changes will be less than 1% in aggregate on Tier 1 capital requirements across major banks, phased in over four years.
"This is smaller than for our consultation proposals, and is clearly very small compared with the roughly 300% increase we needed over the decade from the global financial crisis to COVID. It is a smaller impact than in other major jurisdictions," Evans added.
The FTSE 350 banking index .FTNM301010 was up 1.5% at 1056 GMT, compared with a 0.8% gain in the blue chip index .FTSE, with shares in HSBC HSBA.L, Barclays BARC.L and NatWest NWG.L trading 2.2%-0.2% higher.
REEVES MEETING INDUSTRY
Finance minister Rachel Reeves welcomed the reforms, saying they would deliver certainty for the banking sector to "finance investment and growth in the UK".
Together with Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey, Reeves met chief executives from across the banking industry to discuss the changes.
"Today marks the end of a long road after the 2008 financial crisis," Reeves said in a statement.
"Britain's banks have a vital role to play in helping businesses to grow, getting infrastructure built and supporting ordinary people's finances."
A spokesperson for NatWest, Britain's biggest lender to small and medium-sized companies, said its work with the government to "get more certainty on the detail" would continue.
Anindya Ghosh Chowdhury, a Director in the Banking Risk and Regulatory Consulting team at Forvis Mazars said the revised package would bring UK capital requirements for SME lending in line with European peers but British banks still faced notable divergence in the treatment of residential mortgages.
News of the BoE's revised approach to implementing Basel rules comes two days after the United States Federal Reserve's regulatory chief outlined a plan to also significantly reduce capital demands on big U.S. banks following intense Wall Street lobbying against the Basel rules.
Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr said a watered-down plan would raise capital requirements at banks with more than $100 billion in assets by 9% compared with 19% originally.
But industry analysts say hoarding such a vast volume of extra capital is unnecessary and the reforms will mean banks have less capital to lend or to support healthy functioning of global markets.
The European Union has already delayed a core part of the regulation relating to banks' trading books until January 2026, but is pressing ahead with introducing the bulk of the remaining rules in January 2025.
Steven Hall, a partner in KPMG UK's Risk and Regulatory Advisory practice, said there was a "very real possibility" the requirements would need further updates to reflect other risks such as cyber and climate risk.
"Given these reforms are almost 15 years in the making, there is a general concern across the industry about the time it has taken to reach this point," he said.
Additional reporting by Amanda Cooper, David Miliken and Lawrence White; Editing by Alison Williams and Jane Merriman
免责声明: XM Group仅提供在线交易平台的执行服务和访问权限，并允许个人查看和/或使用网站或网站所提供的内容，但无意进行任何更改或扩展，也不会更改或扩展其服务和访问权限。所有访问和使用权限，将受下列条款与条例约束：(i) 条款与条例；(ii) 风险提示；以及(iii) 完整免责声明。请注意，网站所提供的所有讯息，仅限一般资讯用途。此外，XM所有在线交易平台的内容并不构成，也不能被用于任何未经授权的金融市场交易邀约和/或邀请。金融市场交易对于您的投资资本含有重大风险。
所有在线交易平台所发布的资料，仅适用于教育/资讯类用途，不包含也不应被视为用于金融、投资税或交易相关咨询和建议，或是交易价格纪录，或是任何金融商品或非应邀途径的金融相关优惠的交易邀约或邀请。
本网站上由XM和第三方供应商所提供的所有内容，包括意见、新闻、研究、分析、价格、其他资讯和第三方网站链接，皆保持不变，并作为一般市场评论所提供，而非投资性建议。所有在线交易平台所发布的资料，仅适用于教育/资讯类用途，不包含也不应被视为适用于金融、投资税或交易相关咨询和建议，或是交易价格纪录，或是任何金融商品或非应邀途径的金融相关优惠的交易邀约或邀请。请确保您已阅读并完全理解，XM非独立投资研究提示和风险提示相关资讯，更多详情请点击 这里。
