European banks need $47 billion to meet new capital rules

The European banking system is 39.7 billion euros ($47 billion) short of the capital it needs to implement new regulations meant to ensure the world's banks can withstand financial shocks, the European Banking Authority (EBA) said on Wednesday.
The Basel III rules, agreed earlier this month, require banks to hold more capital and cash to avoid a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis, when taxpayers had to rescue some of the world's biggest lenders with billion-dollar bailouts.
The industry has years to introduce the regime, however. In an assessment of the impact of the reforms on European Union banks, the EBA looked at data from 2015 on 88 banks from 17 EU countries. Of those banks, 36 were internationally active and so have higher capital requirements than the others.
The EBA found that EU banks would require another 17.5 billion euros in core capital, such as common stocks and reserves, with the total capital shortfall being 39.7 billion euros.