But it is less clear what the changes on the other side will be: how banks will respond to the new regulatory and economic environment. There is much soul searching in the industry about what the future looks like. The reform programme and returns in banking The most marked change in this new landscape is the much greater amounts of capital in banks and as a consequence the much reduced level of leverage. Headline levels of required capital have increased. And the risk associated with many types of assets and business activities has been fundamentally re-appraised. For the largest firms, the equity levels required will be around 7 times higher than before the crisis on a risk weighted asset basis. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Moreover, international standards will determine not just the leverage firms can carry on a risk weighted basis but also, when an international leverage ratio is agreed in 2019, the absolute amount of assets they can carry for any given level of capital. A number of major jurisdictions such as the US have implemented leverage ratio rules in advance of that; the FPC will shortly issue proposals to do so in the UK. Lower leverage will reduce the returns that banks’ shareholders make, relative to pre-crisis. But it also means that banks will be safer investments which should also reduce the returns that investors require.
2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  When leaning against the wind of the credit cycle, macro-prudential authorities do, like their monetary policy colleagues, still need to find the optimal path. To use the words of the UK Chancellor, their objective is not to ensure “the stability of the graveyard”. How they balance cost and risk, where they set the trade-offs, will depend in large part on how confident they are about the underlying resilience of the system – in other words how well they have done on the first impulse. International governance The second big change I want, therefore, to highlight is the development since the crisis of much stronger international governance. This stems from the creation, at the April 2009 G20 London summit, of the Financial Stability Board (FSB). And, equally important, from the decision at the Summit that the FSB should report directly to the G20 Leaders and Finance Ministers to give it the necessary “clout”. Working with the standard setting organisations like the Basel Committee, the FSB has provided the drive and coordination to reform and develop global standards for bank capital, liquidity, and resolution. If one remembers the best part of a decade that it took to develop and reach agreement on the Basel 2 capital standard, the progress made and international agreement reached over the past 5 years has been extraordinary.