Money World economy
Finance ministers from the world's leading nations appeared set to disagree on calls for a global bank levy to pay for future bailouts, as they wound down a meeting aimed at safeguarding the global economic recovery.
The G20 ministers meeting in South Korea's southern city of Busan is framed against the backdrop of turmoil in the eurozone, which has sent the euro tumbling and triggered doubts over the durability of the recovery.
But the issue of new capital and liquidity standards for banks has been divisive going into the meeting while comments from the Japanese finance minister indicated there was unlikely to be agreement on a global bank tax.
"We have already gone through the bubble economy ourselves in the past, more than 10 years ago, and we have a deposit insurance scheme which gives good protection," Japanese Senior Vice Minister of Finance Naoki Minezaki said.
Many argue more time is needed to assess the implications of tighter banking requirements and how any global standard can be reconciled with an array of different national regulatory plans and tax regimes.
Members whose economies are largely financed by markets, such as the US, want banks to be required to hold more assets on their balance sheets to protect against any future crises. But policymakers in continental Europe, where banks provide more financing, worry that higher reserve requirements may hit growth.
A global bank tax is supported by the International Monetary Fund, European powers and the United States but resisted by some developing nations plus Canada and Australia, who argue that they should not have to pay to clear up a mess they did not create.
