Majors need $23bn in core capital
ANZ and NAB may take longer to meet any stiffer new capital ratios than their Sydney-headquartered big bank rivals, sell-side analysts at UBS estimate.Higher capital buffers for so-called domestic significant financial institutions "appear inevitable" the UBS analysts said, helping to form a consensus interpretation of the Murray inquiry's interim report."The interim report looks at a number of alternatives to address moral hazard and 'too big to fail'. We believe the most likely of these is further increases in CET1 (or core capital) requirements for D-SIFIs," they said. "The report looks at international benchmarks of capital buffers for D-SIFIs which range from one per cent (Australia, Canada, China) to six per cent (Switzerland). "Our interpretation is that the Inquiry is most likely to recommend D-SIFI add-ons of around two to three per cent. "Once board buffers for volatility and timing of dividends are taken into account this would imply target CET1 for the majors may settle around 10 per cent to 10.5 per cent by 2017." UBS projected that if the major banks were required to increase CET1 ratios to 10.5 per cent (a three per cent D-SIFI buffer) "they would need to increase common equity tier 1 by A$23 billion above current forecasts by 2016."