Basel Committee Won't Delay Jan. 1 Rules Implementation

The head of the Basel Committee said yesterday that the Basel III capital requirements will be implemented on New Year's Day as planned.

The introduction of stricter capital rules for banks will go ahead as planned on January 1, the head of the Basel Committee at the Bank of International Settlements told Reuters on Tuesday.

"A large number of jurisdictions have everything in place and are ready to go on Jan. 1 2013," Wayne Byres, secretary-general of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision at the BIS, told Reuters on the sidelines of a financial sector conference in Abu Dhabi.

"We are persisting with the date and those not ready on Jan. 1 can be ready thereafter."

Byres added that requests from the United States and the European Union delaying the implementation of the rules, the world's regulatory response to the 2007-09 financial crisis, were not on the agenda for the Basel Committee's December meeting.

(Reporting by Stanley Carvalho; Writing by David French; Editing by Stephen Nisbet)

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