Sep. 15--The push for reforming bank regulations, both federally and internationally, will probably force banks to hold more capital and could produce a new U.S. super-regulator, PNC Financial Services Group CEO James Rohr said today.

PNC believes the industry needs a "systemic risk regulator," Rohr told analysts at the Barclays Capital Global Financial Services conference in New York. "But a new separate agency could be problematic, in that you'll wind up with competing agencies."

Noting Pittsburgh's hosting the Group of 20 economic summit next week, Rohr also believes U.S. regulators and foreign finance ministers will require banks to increase capital levels as a buffer against bad loans in the struggling economy. "But that will be debated for some time," due to differences from country to country in how capital is calculated.

Rohr said the amount PNC sets aside for bad loans in the summer quarter will "look a lot like" the nearly $1.1 billion the bank put aside for possible loan losses in the spring quarter.

He also said credit quality began to "show signs of stability" in the spring quarter and that the trend was continuing. Nonperforming assets, mostly bad loans, represented 1.62 percent of PNC's total loans as of June 30, compared with 2.22 percent of the bank's industry peers, according to SNL DataSource research.

Separately, Rohr said PNC in the coming weeks will convert corporate customers from National City Corp., which it acquired last December. PNC plans to convert about 100 National City's retail branches in the Pittsburgh region over the weekend of Nov. 7 and 8.

Thomas Olson can be reached via e-mail or at 412-320-7854.

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