King warns Europe not to weaken bank rules

In his Mansion House speech, King told the City's elite all systemically important banks must hold more common equity capital to absorb losses in future crises - as set out in last year's Basel III agreement, writes the Independent. The soon-to-be-knighted Mr King said: "A crucial part of the new Basel III framework is the recognition that only common equity is ultimately a truly loss-absorbing layer of capital. I am therefore concerned that the European Commission will propose a weakening of the Basel standards in that area." Britain, Spain and five other countries last month wrote t...