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LONDON, Dec 3 (Reuters) - The Bank of England won't considerimposing tougher balance sheet curbs on banks until globalregulators have agreed a common definition.
A summary of discussions by the BoE's Financial PolicyCommittee, which is tasked with spotting risks to the broaderfinancial system, said it "would return to these issues once aninternational agreement on the definition of the leverage ratiohad been reached."
The leverage ratio requires banks to hold capital inproportion to their total non-risk weighted assets. It iscurrently set at 3 percent in Britain but some lawmakers want itset at 4 percent or higher to curb risks.
The global Basel committee of banking supervisors is meetingin Hong Kong on Tuesday and Wednesday and is expected tofinalise a definition of the leverage ratio.
The Financial Policy Committee said it was also doingfurther work on whether big banks should adopt two methods forcalculating the core capital buffers. Banks currently usedso-called internal models but regulators suspect that somecalculations are "gamed", or massaged to reduce the need forcapital.
The FPC said it would cost banks a one-off 40 million poundsto also calculate capital buffers using the so-calledstandardised approach.
Minutes to the discussions, which took place on Nov 20,showed divergent views over forcing banks to use a standardisedapproach.
The main decision to head off the risk of a housing bubbleby re-profiling the BoE's Funding for Lending scheme towardssmall businesses appeared to raise no disagreements.
(Reporting by Huw Jones and Christina Fincher)
