Britain says EU bank trading plans in line with UK reforms

LONDON, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Draft European Union plans tocurb risky trading at banks have been designed to allow Britainto fully introduce its own reform of trading, the UK financeministry said.

EU financial services chief Michel Barnier published a draftlaw on Wednesday to ban speculative trading at banks and in somecases force lenders to wall off other types of trading to keepdepositors safe and taxpayers off the hook if a trade goeswrong.

Britain has just approved a law to implement the so-calledVickers rule which will force retail arms of banks to hold morecapital and transfer some trading activities to their wholesalearms.

"Today's proposals from the European Commission have much incommon with the banking reforms the UK has pioneered and havebeen designed to allow the UK to go ahead with fullimplementation of its reforms," a UK Treasury spokesman said.

"Indeed, the government's Banking Reform Act already meets,and in some places exceeds, the proposed standards set out bythe Commission, putting the UK at the forefront of European andglobal efforts to create safer banks without taxpayer subsidiesthat distort the European single market."

In Barnier's proposal, an EU country can opt out of thewalling off requirement if it can show it has taken similarmeasures already, an exemption Britain expects to obtain.