Fitch has tried to run the numbers, and concluded that the 29 largest banks in the world will have to raise $566 billion in equity to comply with Basel III.  It will cut their return on equity a couple percentage points, and gives lie to the idea that post-crisis financial regulation is toothless.  Fitch also thinks that US banks will be hit harder by the requirements than will Asian or European ones, which will interest the political scientists.

As FT Alphaville has observed, this has economic consequences, or could, at least: "there will thus be an increase in general borrowing costs, diminished availability of credit, reduced asset liquidity, a shift to securitization and capital markets funding or migration to less regulated segments of the financial system."

Well, there could be anyway.  Your 29 largest banks, or tongue-trippingly "G-SIFIs":

Finance, Financial Crisis, Financial Institutions | Bookmark

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8345157d569e201676696d859970b

Links to weblogs that reference :