LONDON, Sept 11 (Reuters) - The world's top banks havealmost eliminated the shortfall in capital they would have tofully meet new capital rules that are being phased in.
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) said onThursday the world's top 102 banks would have had a 15.1 billioneuro ($19.5 billion) aggregate shortfall to reach a 7 percenttarget for common equity capital at the end of December,compared to an estimated shortfall of 57.5 billion euros sixmonths earlier.
It continues a sharp reduction in the theoretical capitalshortfall faced by banks, which was estimated at 374 billioneuros less than three years ago. BIS has been monitoring howwell banks are transitioning to the implementation of toughercapital rules, which are being phased in from 2013 to 2019.
($1 = 0.7735 Euros) (Reporting by Steve Slater; Editing by Nishant Kumar)