In a victory for banks, global financial regulators revisedrules governing how much money must be set aside to cover losses byswaps traders, backing away from guidelines that firms warned woulddestabilize the $693 trillion derivatives market.

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision's final rule,released today, would require swaps dealers to hold less cash toprotect against defaults than did a proposal published last year.The plan now applies a minimum 20 percent risk weighting to moneydeposited at clearinghouses, which are third parties that guaranteethe transactions, down from 1,250 percent in the original proposal.The change takes effect on Jan. 1, 2017.

The interim plan had threatened to boost costs as much as 92times, according to calculations by three banks shared withBloomberg News. The risk from that original rule, which was lastrevised in 2013, was the higher costs could have caused marketparticipants to flee rather than take advantage of theclearinghouses, making it more difficult for the third parties tosafeguard the swaps market.