France Sees Scope to Scrap Some Bank Regulatory Capital Buffers

France’s top central banker floated the idea of scrapping some capital buffers to help avoid putting European lenders at a disadvantage to US competitors.

Authorities “need to rethink certain overly complex aspects of European regulation, such as the systemic risk buffer, which does not exist anywhere else,” Francois Villeroy de Galhau said in a speech on Tuesday. “There is scope for merging or even eliminating certain buffers.”

The Bank of France governor and other senior euro area central bankers have been working on proposals for reducing the regulatory burden on lenders while not giving up their hard-won resilience. European banks ...