Shares in Barclays up seven percent after BoE leverage ratio delay

LONDON (Reuters) - Shares in Barclays rose by 7 percent after Britain's financial regulator said banks had until 2019 to hit a new target that will cap the size of their businesses at about 20 times their equity. Banking sources had expected lenders to have to meet the new targets, dubbed a leverage ratio, by 2017. The actual requirement, which means banks' equity could have to be as high as 4.95 percent of their total assets, is at the harsher end of industry expectations. Barclays' leverage ratio currently stands at 3.5 percent, the lowest among British banks and it would have come under the most scrutiny had a tighter deadline been imposed. Shares in Lloyds Banking Group were up 2.3 percent, Royal Bank of Scotland shares were up 5.4 percent and HSBC shares were up by 1.8 percent. (Reporting by Matt Scuffham; Editing by Laura Noonan)