In his first budget, the UK’s new chancellor of the exchequer introduced a new tax on banks, that is to be emulated in France and Germany, and pushed at the upcoming G20 meeting.

George Osborne announced Tuesday that the UK’s government will introduce a bank levy starting January 1, 2011, at 0.04%, but it is proposed that the levy will be raised to 0.07%, which is expected to raise over £2 billion annually. There will also be a reduced rate for longer-maturity wholesale funding to be set at 0.02% rising to 0.035%, or half the main rate.

The levy will be based on total liabilities excluding: Tier 1 capital; insured retail deposits; repos secured on sovereign debt and policyholder liabilities of retail insurance businesses within banking groups. Any derivative liabilities will only be taken into account where they are net derivative positions, but the government says that it will consider the technical details of this and other aspects of the levy design in consultation with industry over the summer.

The levy will apply to: the consolidated balance sheet of UK banking groups and building societies; the aggregated subsidiary and branch balance sheets of foreign banks and banking groups operating in the UK; and, the balance sheets of UK banks in non-banking groups. These institutions and groups will only be liable for the levy where their relevant aggregate liabilities amount to £20 billion or more.

“The levy is intended to encourage banks to move to less risky funding profiles. The government believes that banks should make a fair contribution in respect of the potential risks they pose to the UK financial system and wider economy,” it said.

Additionally, a joint statement was also released by the UK, French and German governments today expressing support for the move, and announcing their intention to introduce similar charges. France will present the details of its bank tax in its next budget, and Germany, which announced a framework for a national bank levy at the end of March, will present draft legislation in the summer. The governments indicated that they are committed to “the full implementation” of the G20 financial sector reform agenda and “look forward to discussing these proposals further” at the G20 summit in Toronto.

In response to the move, Fitch Ratings said today that it does not anticipate any impact on UK or global bank ratings from the levy announced today. “The sums payable under the levy look manageable in the light of banks’ pre-tax profits and should not lead to rating changes. They represent at most a small percentage of a portion of a bank’s relevant aggregate liabilities,” says Matthew Taylor, senior director in Fitch’s Financial Institutions rating team. “The levy will cost most for the banks with large short-term wholesale funding requirements, and thus will reward banks which have large bases of retail customer funding, which tend also to be more active in retail lending.”

Fitch adds that it believes that in general banks with a larger proportion of long-term funding should be more stable at times of strain in the funding markets. The agency thus believes that the incentive of a smaller charge for long-term term rather than short-term wholesale funding should contribute to bank stability.