Basel Agreement Boosts European Bank Shares

European bank shares have risen following the weekend agreement on the minimum amounts of cash and easy-to-sell assets that banks have to hold.

A previous draft two years ago said they would have to meet new requirements by 2015, but that has now been extended to 2019.

The reserves are supposed to make banks less vulnerable to lots of customers trying to withdraw their money.

It is the first time there have been liquidity rules covering global banks.

The agreement was made by the group of banking regulators that oversees the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.

Analysts say the rules just announced are more flexible than a draft version, and shares in banks rose on Monday morning.

Barclays shares rose 4%, while Lloyds Banking Group was up 1.3%. In Frankfurt, Deutsche Bank was up 1.6% while Commerzbank rose 2.3%.

via BBC

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza