* Most big Asian banks exempt from stricter rules-FT
* Asian banks not deemed threat to global finance system-FT
* Mizuho up 7.6 pct, SMFG up 5.9 pct, MUFG up 4.2 pct
* Regs have not decided SIFIs subject to strict rules-sources (Recasts, adds background)
TOKYO, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Shares of Mizuho Financial Group and other Japanese banks surged on Wednesday after a Financial Times report saying they may be exempt from new global rules under consideration that could require a further boost of capital
Citing people briefed on the agenda for the G20 summit in Seoul on Thursday and Friday, the FT said officials have decided that regulators should focus on big banks with global operations, exempting domestically focused lenders such as those in China and Japan from the stricter regulations.
But people close to the G20 task force on financial regulation told Reuters on Wednesday that global regulators have yet to draw up lists of banks judged "too big to fail" due to their impact on the global financial system.
The FT report triggered active buying in Japan's top three banks -- Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Mizuho and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG) and top broker Nomura Holdings -- all of which have been dogged by worries they would need to raise capital again.
"Prices of megabanks and Nomura reacted sensitively to the report. I doubt whether a lot of new long positions were taken on it, but hedge funds who have been holding short positions may have rushed to cover those positions," said Takashi Ohba, a senior strategist at Okasan Securities.
The Basel Committee of central bankers and regulators approved a "Basel III" package in September to toughen up global capital and liquidity requirements for banks from 2013, aiming to prevent another financial crisis.
On top of that regulators have been working on a framework for regulating so-called systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs). Among steps being discussed for SIFIs is a capital surcharge of 2 to 3 percent.
The G20 will establish two separate lists for big banks, with the first list made up of about 20 global banks whose failure would pose a risk to the global financial system and which should therefore be subject to the most exacting rules, the FT said.
The second list would be of banks that are systemically important within their own economies but pose little risk to the broader financial system, the newspaper said.
The FT cited legal experts as saying the likes of Mizuho, SMFG and MUFG could be omitted from the first list.
But people close to the Financial Stability Board, which is tasked by the G20 with implementing its regulatory pledges, said they had not decided which institutions would be classified as SIFIs.
"There are no two lists," one official close to the FSB told Reuters.
They added that additional loss absorbency measures would be applied to all systemically important financial institutions -- whether they were globally interconnected or not -- but that they would apply "initially" to global SIFIs in particular.
"It's premature to say anything about the institutions identified and their number," the official said.
Mizuho closed up 7.6 percent at 127 yen, SMFG gained 5.9 percent to 2,512 yen and MUFG rose 4.2 percent to 393 yen. Nomura jumped 4.4 percent to 447 yen. (Reporting by Chikafumi Hodo, Noriyuki Hirata and Taiga Uranaka; Editing by Joseph Radford and Nathan Layne)