ECB bank regulator must accept national peculiarities - Germany

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - European bank regulators need to take national peculiarities into account and should focus more on problematic banks while easing up on healthy lenders, the head of Germany's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bafin) said on Monday.

"There are cases in which it is absolutely necessary to take into account national peculiarities and that is the case with Germany's co-operative and savings banks," Felix Hufeld told a conference.

Hufeld, who also said the watchdog needs to cut its focus on detail, was speaking at a conference on ECB's bank regulation role, also attended by Sabine Lautenschlager, one of the bank's top regulation chiefs.

(Reporting by Francesco Canepa; Editing by Balazs Koranyi and Toby Chopra)