On the comparison ofcapital requirements forglobal systemicallyimportant banks by Patrizia Baudino, Jonathan Beissinger, Renzo Corrias,Mathias Drehmann, Egemen Eren, Burcu Erik and NikolaTarashev July 2026 JEL classification: G21, G28, F65, P52 Keywords: Basel Framework, banking regulation, capitalbuffers, capital requirements, financial stability, G-SIBs,macroprudentialpolicy,microprudentialpolicy,supervisory practices FSI Insights are written by members of the Financial Stability Institute (FSI) of the Bank for InternationalSettlements (BIS), often in collaboration with staff from supervisory agencies and central banks. The papersaim to contribute to international discussions on a range of contemporary regulatory and supervisorypolicy issues and implementation challenges faced by financial sector authorities. The views expressed inthis publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the BIS, its membercentral banks or the Basel-based standard-setting bodies. Authorised by the Chair of the FSI, Fernando Restoy. This publication is available on the BIS website (www.bis.org). To contact the BIS Global Media and PublicRelationsteam,pleaseemailmedia@bis.org.Youcansignupforemailalertsatwww.bis.org/emailalerts.htm. ©Bank for International Settlements 2026. All rights reserved. Brief excerpts may be reproduced ortranslated provided the source is stated. Contents Executive summary ........................................................................................................................................................................... 1Section 1 – Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................. 3Section 2 – The structure of the Basel III risk-based capital requirements ................................................................ 4Risk-based capital stack – Pillar 1 requirements.......................................................................................................... 6Risk-based capital stack – Pillar 2 supervisory review ............................................................................................... 9Risk-based capital stack – overall requirements........................................................................................................11Risk-weighted assets ............................................................................................................................................................13Section 3 – The structure of the Basel III leverage ratio requirements......................................................................18Section 4 – Conclusions ................................................................................................................................................................24References..........................................................................................................................................................................................25Annex 1: List of G-SIBs in the sample......................................................................................................................................27Annex 2: Variation in capital requirements and actual capital ratios .........................................................................28Annex 3: Variation in capital requirements (after excluding different components) ...........................................29Annex 4: RWA density and CET1 capital requirements....................................................................................................30Annex 5: Use of internal models and credit risk RWA densities before model restrictions ..............................31Annex 6: Advanced IRB RWA density by exposure type..................................................................................................32Annex 7: Capital requirements stack by jurisdiction, over time (2014–25) ..............................................................33Abbreviations....................................................................................................................................................................................35 On the comparison of capital requirements for globalsystemically important banks1 Executive summary Following the Great Financial Crisis (GFC), Basel III introduced a comprehensive package of capitalreforms to bolster the resilience of the global banking system.The framework increased the qualityof regulatory capital, raised minimum capital requirements and introduced regulatory buffers to absorblosses in stress and mitigate procyclicality. Alongside risk-based requirements, it added a non-risk-basedleverage ratio requirement as a backstop. It also imposed additional regulatory buffers on globalsystemically important banks (G-SIBs), to lower the probability of their failure. Basel