Australia's big banks could face headwinds in sustaining their strong rates of dividend growth, as a result of new rules requiring them to hold billions of dollars more in capital.

Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, National Australia Bank and ANZ must lift their buffers for absorbing losses by an extra 1 percentage point from January 2016, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority said on Monday.

Source: Nomura Reseach, Company Data.

The regulator will require the extra loss absorbency as part of a global push to make ''too big to fail'' banks hold more capital, a response to the economic devastation caused by major bank failures.

In a win for Macquarie, the investment bank will not have to hold the extra capital because it was not deemed a ''domestic systemically important bank''.