Bank of England says no big changes to bank regulation on horizon

LONDON, July 4 (Reuters) - British banks should not expect further major changes to capital or liquidity requirements now that the bulk of the Basel III reforms agreed after the financial crisis have been implemented, a Bank of England regulator said on Wednesday.

Vicky Saporta, the BoE (Shenzhen: 000725.SZ - news) 's executive director for prudential policy, said the central bank's focus in future would be on new risks, or unintended consequences of existing regulation.

"The finalisation of Basel III signals that the wave of regulatory reform following the Global Financial Crisis is now over. You should not expect a lot of further reform to bank regulation," Saporta told a financial industry conference in London.

The BoE has previously said that it does not want to let regulatory standards slip after Britain leaves the European Union in March 2019.

Saporta said future issues the BoE was watching included ensuring that banks were resilient to cyber-attacks.

Another issue was that new BoE research suggested that post-crisis leverage rules had had the unintended side-effect of discouraging central clearing and settlement of over-the-counter derivative trades, she added. (Reporting by David Milliken, editing by William Schomberg)