No option on reforms: Reserve

The Reserve Bank has rejected calls to delay global banking reforms, saying Australia cannot "opt out" of rule changes designed to make the international financial system safer.

With some bankers urging regulators to defer changes because Australia avoided the worst of the global financial crisis, assistant governor Guy Debelle said these arguments made little sense.

Under liquidity rules due to begin in 2015, banks will be forced to hold enough easy-to-sell assets to cover lending outflows for a month.

Alongside tougher capital requirements, the changes are likely to dampen bank profit growth, and some in the industry have expressed concern that Australia is racing ahead of the rest of the world, after some countries delayed the liquidity changes until 2019.

But Dr Debelle dismissed the calls for delay, despite some concerns the full impact of global regulatory changes was not well understood.

"The capital inflows that the country has experienced over many decades are sourced from the global financial system. Given that, we don't have the option just to opt out when we don't like particular aspects of it," he said at an Australian Centre for Financial Studies conference in Sydney.