Banks May Face 10% Basel Capital Burden Increase, Heim Says
- Societe Generale’s Heim commented on Basel revamp in New York
- Basel debate focused on defining ‘significant’ increase
This article is for subscribers only.
Banks may face an increase of about 10 percent in their capital requirements as a result of the overhaul of risk-assessment rules under way at the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, according to Philippe Heim, chief financial officer of Societe Generale SA.
The Group of 20 nations and the Basel Committee’s oversight body “want to concretely deliver reform improving the comparability of risk-weighted assets, but with no significant capital increase,” Heim said on Sept. 12 at a conference in New York. “The whole debate is all about what does it mean: no significant capital increase. We begin to hear that it should be an inflation of around plus 10 percent.”