JPMorgan chief says banking rules 'anti-American'

PARIS: New rules that would force global banks to raise more capital are anti-American, JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon told the Financial Times in an interview on Monday.

"I'm very close to thinking the United States shouldn't be in Basel anymore," Dimon said in reference to the banking sector's global Basel III agreement governing capital and liquidity requirements.

"I would not have agreed to rules that are blatantly anti-American," he said. "Our regulators should go there and say: 'If it's not in the interests of the United States, we're not doing it.'"

Agreed a year ago, the new Basel rules require banks to raise core capital reserves to the equivalent of 7.0 percent of the loans they give to clients by 2019 from the current 2.0 percent.

The rules also include a special capital requirement for major banks -- including JPMorgan Chase -- that are considered too important to the world financial system to fail.

In response, the European Union Internal Markets Commissioner Michel Barnier said that all Group of 20 nations had signed the Basel III agreement and agreed to implement its rules.

"It's not surprising that some banks don't want them," Barnier said.

"But let's not have short memories. It's not an excess of capital and regulation that provoked the crisis that we are still suffering from," he said.

G20 nations, the world's developped and emerging powers, are required to gradually begin applying the Basel III rules in 2013.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011