French banks under pressure to hold more op risk capital

Rogue traders and a worsening financial crisis are leading French regulators to put pressure on banks to hold more capital for op risk

French regulators are putting increased pressure on the country's banks to hold more capital in the wake of the financial crisis and the Jérôme Kerviel rogue trading incident at Société Générale (SG) discovered in January 2008.

"The regulators are scrutinising every aspect of our op risk framework and asking us to justify each calculation and action," says one source. "They want us to hold more capital but they are not telling us how to do it. As we add more capital, we move further away from