Basel Would Have Left Banks With $797 Billion Capital Shortfall

Basel bank regulators said rules on capital requirements would have forced financial institutions to raise 602 billion euros ($797 billion) of capital had they been in place at the end of last year.

Lenders would also have had a 2.89 trillion-euro shortfall in the funds needed to guard against a run on deposits had the planned Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s rules been in place at the start of 2010, the panel said in a statement on its website today. The committee agreed in July to phase in the capital and liquidity rules by 2019 in a bid to mitigate their effect on banks emerging from the credit crisis.