Bankers' pay wasn't part of the Basel agreements, but lawmakers in the European Parliament insisted on limiting payouts linked to short-term profits because they were seen as driving bankers to take excessive risks in the lead-up to the crisis.
The Basel rules don't fully kick in until 2019, but banks across Europe are under pressure from regulators and investors to comply with the rules before then.
Investors fear certain exposures such as sovereign debt and commercial real estate aren't being prudently valued and that banks are manipulating the Basel risk-weighting rules to overstate their capital ratios.
An EU official said Mr. Lew told Mr. Barnier the U.S. wasn't ready to sign up to a specific date for the implementation of Basel III rules on banks' higher capital buffers.
Unlike the politicians at Copenhagen, the central bank governors and heads of banking supervision who form the oversight body of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision - which decides these vital rules for banks - well, they don't exactly court the media.