Finance Regulators Pledge Further Help to Industry for Pandemic

(Bloomberg) --

Global financial regulators vowed to keep easing rules to cope with the coronavirus pandemic.

In a report ahead of a virtual meeting on Wednesday of Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors, the Financial Stability Board said it stood ready to coordinate additional relief on capital requirements, upcoming regulatory deadlines and other standards.

Authorities have already freed up hundreds of billions of dollars by loosening capital demands on banks, eased key planks of the post-2008 crisis rulebook, delayed new margin requirements on derivatives and backstopped markets with trillions of dollars in assets.

The actions help “provide the resilience needed to sustain lending to the real economy, and preserve an international level playing field,” the FSB said in the report on the implications of the pandemic on financial stability. “Such actions will not roll back regulatory reforms or compromise the underlying objectives of existing international standards.”

The FSB, which is led by U.S. Federal Reserve Vice Chair Randal K. Quarles, was set up in immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis to monitor and ward off threats to the global financial system.

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