Basel opposes 'myopic' calls to ease bank capital requirements

London

GLOBAL regulators on the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision are pushing back against calls for them to ease capital requirements on lenders to stimulate lending.

The job of the committee, which brings together regulators from Australia and China to Italy and the US, is to define minimum standards rather than to set out the "optimal level" of capital, secretary general William Coen said in the text of a speech to be delivered on Tuesday in Sydney. That approach doesn't preclude individual jurisdictions from making tougher demands, if that is what they wish to do, he said.