(Adds detail, background)
LONDON, Oct 26 (Reuters) - Banks in Britain won't face a newwave of rules, nor will there be a respite from implementing therevolution already agreed, the country's top banking regulatorsaid on Wednesday.
Britain's vote to leave the European Union, source of mostbanking regulation in the UK, has kindled speculation that someof the sector's rulebook could be jettisoned after Brexit.
But Sam Woods, chief executive since June of the Bank ofEngland's Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), said banks canexpect more of the same from him in terms of supervision, evenas a "revolutionary" period of rulemaking comes to an end.
Some banks want a delay in "ring fencing", a rule thatrequires them to wrap their retail arms with their own capitalcushions from 2019, insulating those operations from riskierinvestment banking activities.
But Woods said the benefits of ring-fencing remained strongand its implementation should continue apace despite heightened,Brexit-related uncertainties.
"So it is full steam ahead," he told an audience of bankersand regulators in London's financial district. "In other words,no bonfire."
The next task will be for banks to adapt their businessmodels to new capital requirements and low interest rates, butit was too early to say what the final shape of those modelswould be.
"This is now a first-order issue for us at the PRA and(BoE's) Financial Policy Committee," Woods said.
The PRA will shortly publish details of how much "bail in"debt Britain's main banks such as Barclays and HSBC must hold, for potentially writing down in a crisis toavoid the taxpayer bailouts seen during the 2007-2009 financialmeltdown.
Next week the PRA will launch quarterly statistics to showthe levels of capital and risk-weighted assets on an aggregatebasis. In 2017 it will publish a discussion paper on going astep further and requiring banks to publish detailed informationon their capital holdings.
The Bank of England has said banks in general already holdenough capital. (Editing by Jane Merriman and David Holmes)