Banks lobby for Basel III rewrite
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Several major banks are calling for the Basel III rules to be changed, warning the current requirements risk severely hampering world trade.
Banks including Royal Bank of Scotland, Standard Chartered and HSBC say the Basel III rules as they apply to trade finance are unfair, the Financial Times reports.
RBS chief executive Stephen Hester indicated last week that RBS was lobbying for rules to be changed when it comes to trade finance.
Standard Chartered head of transaction banking Karen Fawcett also predicted last week that as the rules currently stand, global trade could fall by 2 per cent while global GDP could fall by 0.5 per cent.
The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision published the rules in September which require banks to hold five times the amount of capital to back trade finance business.
The rules are due to be phased in by 2019.
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