Newsletter April 2012: Big banks show €485.6 bn shortfall to meet Basel III

BASEL – The world’s largest banks would have needed an aggregate €485.6 billion ($638 billion) more equity in mid-2011 if the 7% Basel III core equity capital requirement had been in force at the time. That is revealed by a monitoring exercise undertaken by regulators at the Basel Committee, which drafted the Basel III package of capital and liquidity reforms issued at the end of 2010, and due to be phased-in over a six-year period starting in 2013.