Banks face Basel push to prepare for interest-rate changes

Brussels

BANKS are set to face tougher international rules on the capital that they must have on hand to cope with a change in interest rates after regulators raised concerns that current standards may be too flimsy to fully capture the risks.

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, a group bringing together regulators such as the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank (ECB), proposed overhauling its current rules for interest-rate risk, including possible binding standards on how banks should measure their resilience to shock rate changes, and on the capital they should have to cover potential losses.