The United States plans to relax capital rules governing banks' trading of government bonds.

Concerns about the impact of a key capital buffer measure on banks' trading in the $29 trillion US government bond market have prompted top US banking regulators to plan to lower the buffer requirement for the largest banks by up to 1.5 percentage points. According to sources familiar with the matter, the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency are focusing on the so-called "enhanced supplementary leverage ratio" rule. This rule applies to large US banks such as JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. The proposal would reportedly reduce the capital requirements of bank holding companies under the eSLR framework from the current 5% to a range of 3.5% to 4.5%. These sources requested anonymity as the discussion involves non-public information. They also suggested that the requirements for bank subsidiaries could also be reduced from the current 6% to the same range.