LONDON (Reuters) - The European Union will peg back implementation of a core element in the final leg of global rules governing bank capital by one year to January 2026, citing a "highly likely" delay in the United States, the bloc's financial services chief said on Tuesday.

Countries are introducing the last batch of a global bank capital accord known as Basel III, rolled out after taxpayers were forced to bail out lenders in the global financial crisis of 2007-09.

EU financial services Mairead McGuinness, said it was clear that the United States would not be able to meet its self-imposed deadline of July 2025 for introducing the rules.

"In practice, the entry of application of the Basel standards in the U.S. is now highly unlikely to take place before January 1st, 2026, at the earliest," McGuinness told a conference.

The EU had planned to introduce all of the final leg in January 2025, but will now delay by one year the section on how banks cover markets risks in their trading books.

"This one-year delay ensures a global level playing field, for those big European banks competing with other global players. It gives us time to see what others are doing," McGuinness said.

"In the EU, we are firmly adhering to our date of January 1st, 2025 for entry into application of the bulk of the Basel standards," McGuinness added.