March 20, 2013 - Major banks are taking strides towards meeting the requirements of the incoming Basel III regulations, it has emerged.

The Basel Committee yesterday (19 March) published the results of its latest monitoring exercise of how financiers are adapting to the changes, which will see lenders maintaining a larger volume of capital on their balance sheets to make sure they can withstand future shocks.

According to the body, the world's 101 largest banks boosted their core capital reserves by around €166 billion ($215 billion) during the first half of 2012.

As such, had Basel III been implemented in June last year, financiers would have needed an extra €208.2 billion to comply with the rules.

This represents a vast improvement on the shortfall of €374 billion registered at the end of 2011 and shows that preparations for the reforms - which are scheduled to be fully in place by 2019 - are progressing well.