{"id":914704,"date":"2026-04-24T05:33:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T05:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/914704\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T05:33:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T05:33:17","slug":"irish-banks-call-on-europe-to-relax-financial-crash-era-rules-so-they-can-lend-more-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/914704\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish banks call on Europe to relax financial crash-era rules so they can lend more \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Irish banks have written to the European Commission<\/a> calling on it to relax rules around bank capitalisation introduced after the financial crash so they can \u201cunlock lending capacity\u201d for households and businesses and \u201csupport economic growth\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bank capital rules implemented after the 2008 financial crisis significantly increased the amount and quality of capital banks must hold to absorb losses as a safeguard against future financial crashes.<\/p>\n

The call to relax the rules is included in a submission by Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI)<\/a>, which is the representative body of the banks, to the European Commission\u2019s consultation on the competitiveness of the European Union\u2019s<\/a> banking sector.<\/p>\n

It said \u201cmore efficient use of bank capital\u201d and \u201cconsistent application of EU banking rules\u201d was required to unlock lending capacity at a time when more lending was required due to the green and digital transitions.<\/p>\n

It called for \u201ctargeted reforms\u201d to improve the effectiveness of the EU\u2019s banking framework and to deliver a \u201clevel playing field\u201d for banks operating across the single market that \u201cdoes not disproportionately impact smaller countries such as Ireland\u201d.<\/p>\n

BPFI chief executive Brian Hayes<\/a> said the EU remained a largely bank-based financial system, with banks playing a \u201ccritical role\u201d in financing the \u201creal economy\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cSustainable economic growth, therefore, depends on banks having the capacity to lend,\u201d he said. \u201cHowever, the cumulative layering of capital requirements since the financial crisis has added unnecessary complexity, with limited additional financial stability benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hayes said \u201cwide variations\u201d in the application of capital and macroprudential measures across member states \u201cundermine the level playing field within the single market, disproportionately affecting smaller member states such as Ireland\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hayes said the banks were \u201cnot calling for deregulation\u201d, but instead \u201cadvocating for a more efficient regulatory framework\u201d.<\/p>\n

Asked how much bank capital could potentially be unlocked, BPFI said there was no significant study available for the Irish market, but pointed to a study published last year by the European Banking Federation, a trade body.<\/p>\n

It established that discretionary decisions of multiple EU and national authorities over and above the minimum requirement represented an incremental capital requirement of \u20ac273.2 billion, affecting financing capacity by an estimated \u20ac2.7-4.1 trillion.<\/p>\n

While the minimum capital requirement remained stable between 2021 and 2024, the \u201csupervisory discretion\u201d increased by more than \u20ac100 billion or 60 per cent during the same period, the study said.<\/p>\n

It argued that the European banking system had achieved \u201ca level of resilience far beyond the original targets\u201d, and that all the capital, own funds and liquidity ratios of European banks reached levels \u201cway above minimum requirements\u201d in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Irish banks have written to the European Commission calling on it to relax rules around bank capitalisation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":914705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[108091,256744,109646,2000,299,5187,2557,1699],"class_list":["post-914704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-banking-and-payments-federation-ireland","tag-banking-crisis","tag-brian-hayes","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-commission","tag-european-union"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116458055661109242","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=914704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}