Bankers battling new rules find ally in debt crisis

LONDON - Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Officer Josef Ackermann and HSBC Holdings Plc Chairman Stephen Green are among bankers with a new ally in their tug of war with politicians over stricter rules: Europe's sovereign-debt crisis.

Balancing tighter regulation after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and sustaining a fragile economic recovery is at the center of a three-day meeting starting on Wednesday in Vienna of the Institute of International Finance (IIF), which represents more than 375 financial companies.

"The sovereign-debt crisis makes it easier for banks to argue that too much regulation will hurt economic growth because of the fragile environment," said Dirk Becker, an analyst at Kepler Capital Markets in Frankfurt. "They can argue that the risk of a double dip will increase if the credit supply is hurt."