Bank capital spat pits Japan, EU against US

Tokyo

BANK regulators from Tokyo to Frankfurt are joining forces to resist a US-backed push for stiffer capital rules that could heap billions of dollars of new requirements on lenders.

Highlighting the stakes, top regulators from Europe, Japan and India are pressing their case in public, shedding light on divisions in the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision as it races to wrap up work this year on the post-crisis capital framework. They want the global standard-setter to soften key proposals for how banks calculate the capital they need to finance lending and trading.