‘Banks need to raise cash’

The world’s top banks need to step up efforts to raise cash or hold on to more profits after regulators estimated they would have had a shortfall of €374bn had new capital rules been in place last year.

Banks have in recent years been bolstering capital ahead of the new regime, designed to create a bigger safety net to protect taxpayers from having to bail out banks and avoid a repeat of the 2007-09 financial crisis.

The new rules will be phased in from January and be fully in place in 2019 but investors and regulators want banks to implement them early.