Years after Lehman: Final rules set on strengthening banks

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — A global forum of banking regulators has finished its yearslong work on rules that aim to keep weak banks from needing taxpayer bailouts and setting off financial crises like the one that led to the Great Recession.

The oversight board of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision agreed on the last batch of rules at a meeting Thursday in Frankfurt, Germany.

A key part of the rules is a limit on how far banks should be allowed to diverge from regulators' assessments of how risky their holdings are.

European Central Bank head Mario Draghi, who heads the Basel committee's oversight board, on Thursday called the step "a major milestone ... that completes the global reform of the regulatory framework.