Banks will be required to hold emergency stocks of easy-to-sell assets starting in 2015 but will be permitted to dip into these liquidity buffers during times of stress, said global regulators meeting in Basel, Switzerland.
The top central bankers and regulators from 27 leading economies firmly rejected industry pleas for a delay to or substantial rewrite of the controversial “liquidity coverage ratio” that will require banks to hold buffers against a 30-day crisis.
Part of the “Basel III” reform package designed to prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis, the LCR has come in for heavy criticism from bankers who say that it will constrain lending, harm economic growth and make the banking system vulnerable to sovereign woes.