Europe’s banks are lobbying hard to delay the introduction of tough new rules on trading capital requirements, and have issued private warnings that hasty reforms could end up harming lending.

The European Union’s Capital Requirements Directive 3 (CRD3), due to be debated as part of this week’s meeting of European finance ministers, will force banks to carry far higher levels of capital to support risky trading activity and is currently set for implementation by the end of 2010.