Sector movers: Banking stocks surge on leverage ratio rules, RBS results

Banking stocks, already bolstered by stronger-than-expected quarterly results from RBS, received another big lift on Friday afternoon as the Bank of England unveiled softer-than-expected requirements for leverage ratios.

The leverage ratio, a key gauge of a bank's ability to cushion itself against losses, measures the proportion of the bank's lending that is funded by equity. It had been provisionally set at 3% under Basel's global rules but the Bank of England was widely expected to unveil stricter requirements.

The FPC said at 14:00 that the leverage ratio of the UK's largest banks would need to be 4.95%. However, when excluding a 0.9% 'counter-cyclical leverage ratio buffer' used during "boom times", it would be just 4.05%, towards the lower-end of the 4-5% range expected by the market.

What's more, the FPC said that the full requirement comes into force in 2019, much later than the 2017 date some analysts had assumed.

Barclays, which had been most at risk from the rule with the lowest leverage ratio among its peer group at just 3.5%, surged in response to the news, up 8.1%.

A spokesman for Barclays said that bank "welcome[d] the certainty" the new requirements provide, and that it is "well on track" to reach the target of a ratio in excess of 4% in 2016. "Therefore we are very confident that we will exceed the requirements set out today with our existing plans," he said.

HSBC rose 1.8% while Lloyds jumped 2.4%.

RBS, meanwhile, was 6.2% higher after saying it swung to a profit of nearly £1.3bn in the third quarter of 2014, compared with a loss of £634m the year before and ahead of the £1.1bn expected by analysts.

The part-nationalised lender also confirmed that it would be keeping Irish arm Ulster Bank following a strategic review.

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