Bank of England eases bank capital and leverage rules

The Bank of England's Financial Policy Committee announced plans to relax some capital and leverage rules for banks, including removing one buffer from the leverage ratio and making a greater share of buffers releasable. The central bank estimates the changes would reduce leverage requirements for large British banks by about 0.2 percentage points from a little over 3%. The measures target large, domestically focused banks such as Lloyds, NatWest and Santander UK, will be subject to public consultation later in the year, and include giving banks multiple years to rebuild buffers while the BoE seeks international support.

BoE plans cut large banks' leverage requirements by about 0.2 percentage point.