http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-12/sweden-s-banks-criticized-by-basel-head-ingves-for-high-leverage.html
Sweden’s financial watchdog said banks in the largest Nordic economy will probably need to hold extra capital to reflect households’ record debt burdens.
That means a countercyclical buffer that’s yet to be calculated for Nordea Bank AB, Swedbank AB (SWEDA), SEB AB and Svenska Handelsbanken AB (SHBA) may stay above zero for “several years,” said Martin Andersson, director general of the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority.
It has been seen as another fine-tuning instrument for the economic cycle, but that’s never been the intention and that wouldn’t be a good way to use it,” Andersson said yesterday in an interview in Stockholm. “It’s about dealing with a credit cycle that’s much longer.” The FSA isn’t planning to adjust the buffer “particularly often,” he said.
Sweden’s government last month unveiled the biggest clampdown on banks since November 2011, when it told lenders to target some of the world’s toughest capital standards. Banks now face an even higher core Tier 1 minimum capital requirement than the 12 percent of risk-weighted assets due to take effect in 2015 as Sweden plans to expand its use of countercyclical buffers to ensure there’s no upper limit to capital levels.
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