Japan's FSA may hike bank capital requirements beyond top three: Nikkei

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Financial Services Agency will consider requiring major banks besides the country's top three megabanks to maintain higher capital ratios because of their systemic importance, business daily Nikkei reported on Monday.

The FSA's new requirement, likely to be phased in from 2016, is expected to cover major trust banks, such as Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank and Norinchukin Bank. These institutions will probably have to maintain capital ratios about 0.5 percentage point higher than other banks, the Nikkei report said.

Japan's top three megabanks, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. (8306.T), Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. (8316.T) and Mizuho Financial Group Inc. (8411.T) are among the Financial Stability Board's (FSB) 28 lenders deemed central to the stability of the global financial system and therefore required to set aside more capital than other banks.

The FSB is a regulatory taskforce for the G20 nations, which oversaw the drafting of Basel III rules that will triple the amount of capital banks must hold compared with their capitalization during the 2007-09 financial crisis.

The Japanese agency will start collecting data next year on banks' assets, domestic market shares, and transactions with other financial institutions to measure the potential risks that banks could pose to the financial system, Nikkei said.

(Reporting by Lisa Twaronite; Editing by Eric Meijer)