* Disclosure requirement extended until March 25, 2012
* Rule parallels a short-selling ban expiring March 2011
* Short-selling restrictions aimed at damping volatility
(Adds detail, background)
FRANKFURT, Jan 31 (Reuters) - German financial watchdog Bafin on Monday extended a disclosure requirement for short selling in 10 major financial stocks until March 2012.
The Bafin rules, rolled out last year, require investors and speculators to notify it when placing big bets that a financial stock will fall and said it would publish those bets in anonymous form if they exceeded a certain threshold.
The disclosure requirement gives Bafin the information it needs to take action against the practice known as short selling if those sales endanger orderly trading.
Germany and other countries moved to clamp down on short selling in the financial crisis as a means of damping stock market volatility, with Berlin even banning some types of short trade -- including in the 10 financial shares -- in separate legislation due to expire on March 31.
Financial observers roundly criticised EU members for their patchwork approach to regulating short selling and legislation is now moving through the European Parliament to require governments to coordinate their efforts in future and avoid unilateral action that was seen as disrupting markets in the crisis.
Bafin's short-selling disclosure rules for financial stocks require the seller to report net positions that exceed 0.2 percent of shares issued, with positions from 0.5 percent and above published in anonymous form on Bafin's website.
The disclosure rules apply to shares in the following companies until March 25, 2012:
- Aareal Bank
- Allianz SE
- Generali Deutschland Holding
- Commerzbank
- Deutsche Bank
- Deutsche Boerse
- Deutsche Postbank
- Hannover Re
- MLP
- Munich Re
(Reporting by Jonathan Gould; Editing by Erica Billingham)