As policymakers look to overhaul bank capital requirements to prevent a repeat of the recent financial crisis, new calculations by Barclays Capital suggest that large US banks could meet tighter global rules without having to raise large capital sums, according to the Financial Times.

The analysis by BarCap’s debt capital markets group estimates that the 35 largest US banks will have to come up with half as much new capital as had been expected following last month’s rewrite of proposed requirements by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.

The significance of this story for wealth management lies in the fact that the capital strength – or lack thereof – of some banks has become a closely watched issue, as clients have in some cases removed their business from banks deemed to be financially weak. On the other hand, a number of firms, such as Credit Suisse and Royal Bank of Canada, have often pointed out how their relative capital strength attracts and reassures clients. (For example, to see a recent comment by Credit Suisse on the issue, click here). On a separate and related point, counter-party risk has become an important topic in areas such as structured products.

The newspaper report said that the Japanese firm Nomura has calculated that the top 16 European banks would also gain a sizeable, though slightly smaller, benefit from the new-look Basel rules.

The Basel committee in July made significant changes to the definition of what banks could count toward highest-quality “tier one” equity capital and effectively trimmed the amount of liquid assets they would be required to keep on hand, the report said.

In July, the European Union and Swiss authorities revealed results of stress tests on banks, designed to show how they would cope with further market turmoil. The results showed that many banks were able to pass the tests but also revealed concerns about a number of banks in Spain.

The existing Basel capital rules are sometimes blamed by commentators for encouraging banks into moving loans and bonds off their balance sheets, thereby encouraging what has become known as the “shadow banking” system.