Commenting on a Sunday Times report that George Osborne is to lay the groundwork for a review of the bank levy, Societe Generale said that Standard Chartered was likely to be the biggest beneficiary.SocGen explained that the current method of calculation puts UK banks at a disadvantage when operating abroad. The levy is paid by UK banks on their global balance sheets, but only on the UK operations of non-UK banks. So, for example, HSBC competes with Santander on equal terms in the UK, but in Brazil it still has to pay the levy while Santander does not, said SocGen.It said that if the levy were scrapped entirely, which is politically difficult and very unlikely, then its 2017 earnings per share forecasts would rise by around 11% for Standard Chartered, 10% for Barclays, 7% for HSBC and RBS, and 5% for Lloyds.If the levy rate were to remain unchanged but simply no longer levied on non-UK balance sheets, the likely 2017 EPS upgrades would be as follows: Standard Chartered +9%, HSBC/Barclays +4%, RBS +1%, Lloyds zero. "This option is possible, but seems unlikely given that it would cut the yield from the levy by well over £1bn," said SocGen."Perhaps more likely is a reformulation of the levy so that it applies only to the UK balance sheets of the banks," Societe Generale remarked.The French bank estimates that to maintain the expected yield of the levy if not applied to non-UK balance sheets would require an increase in the main rate from 21 basis points to 34bps. In this scenario, the likely changes to its 2017 EPS numbers would be an 8% increase for Standard Chartered, 2% for HSBC, nothing for Barclays, a 2% decrease for RBS and a 3% cut to Lloyds.