The committee, made up of regulators from 27 jurisdictions with large financial centres, declined to identify the banks, which will be forced to hold additional top quality capital equal to between 2.5 and 1.0 per cent of their assets adjusted for risk. The surcharge for so-called “global systemically important financial institutions”, or G-SIFIs, will be imposed starting in 2016 on top of the worldwide minimum core tier one capital ratio of 7 per cent.

The committee made public the 12 measures it will use and their relative weights. Based on that, Morgan Stanley analysts have calculated which banks are likely to face which surcharge. People familiar with the Basel Committee’s calculations, confirmed the placements and provided information about banks that Morgan Stanley does not cover. They cautioned that the rankings will change as banks adjust their business models and could be quite different by the time the surcharges are calculated for real in 2014.

Eight universal banks -- three from the UK, one from France, one from Germany and three from the US -- would face the top surcharge of 2.5 per cent. US investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and Swiss banks UBS and Credit Suisse are in the 2.0 per cent category.

If the biggest banks continue to take on risk, they could be hit with an even higher charge of 3.5 per cent, the regulators have said.

Analysts said they believe the markets will expect the G-SIFI banks to achieve their surcharge requirements by 2013, and that most institutions can get there without raising capital.

 

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