June 4 (Bloomberg) -- BNP Paribas SA, France's largest bank, and European rivals including Societe Generale SA and Barclays Plc may need to raise additional capital as their finances weaken, Fitch Ratings said.

``Barclays and BNP and Societe Generale are clearly running on very thin capital ratios,'' Krishnan Ramadurai, a managing director at Fitch's financial institutions group, said at a conference in Tokyo today. ``A number of them need to come to the capital markets to raise capital.''

Barclays, the fourth-largest U.K. bank, Societe Generale, France's second-largest, and BNP have recorded more than $14 billion in combined losses stemming from the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, according to Bloomberg data. Each had a core capital ratio, a measure of financial strength, of 5.7 percent or less at the end of 2007, compared with 9.8 percent at Credit Suisse Group and 7.8 percent at HSBC Holdings Plc, Fitch said.

U.K. banks face prolonged pressure on earnings from the bursting of the nation's property bubble, Ramadurai said. The country's banks may face cuts in their credit ratings because of a ``weaker prospect'' for corporate and investment banking, Fitch said in a statement yesterday.

London-based Barclays may need to raise about 6 billion pounds ($11.7 billion) to increase its capital ratio as profit falls on slower securities revenue and rising customer defaults, Citigroup Inc. analysts said last month.

In total, European financial institutions have had almost $200 billion in subprime and credit-market losses, according to Bloomberg data.

To contact the reporter on this story: Finbarr Flynn in Tokyo at fflynn3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 4, 2008 03:36 EDT