Get with the cycle. An egregious unintended consequence of the great re-regulation post crisis was that, in haste to make banks safer, regulators removed any incentive for them to lend to the real economy. Unable to raise equity to meet new capital hurdles against strict deadlines, banks simply deleveraged. Banks were also required to build higher liquidity buffers to cushion them from runs.
But banks (particularly those swept up in the eurozone debt crisis) struggled to amass liquidity by the deadline. The need to hamster away available liquidity left them disinclined to lend. Cue Sunday’s regulatory easing by the Basel committee on banking supervision.
The committee has heeded bank concerns and revised the so-called liquidity coverage ratio, which forces banks to hold enough cash or easy-to-sell assets (such as sovereign debt) to withstand a 30-day funds outflow. The first such change extends the 2015 deadline for banks to get their act together: they must meet 60 per cent of the requirements by then, but comply fully only in 2019.