A “Tough” Capital Rule for Big Banks?

So the headline says. But from the actual article,

The extra core-capital requirement could be as high as 4.5 percent of risk-weighted assets on top of the baseline 7 percent defined under rules known as Basel III, according to analysts including Citigroup’s Keith Horowitz.

The term “risk-weighted” gives the banks a loophole you can drive a truck through. My guess is that if you had this rule in place in 2005, its main impact would have been to steer banks into holding more AAA-rated mortgage securities.

1 thought on “A “Tough” Capital Rule for Big Banks?

  1. I favor a flat leverage ratio–not risk weighted. Let the fdic deal with the riskiness of the portfolio in the premium charged.

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