The capital needs facing banks are still massive, if some analysts at Commonwealth Bank are on the money.

The Big Four are short A$32 billion of core CET1 capital, wrote Scott Rundell, chief credit strategist at CBA, and Adam Donaldson, the bank's head of fixed-income strategy, in a report on Thursday. Columnist Christopher Joye outlined their work in the Financial Review at the weekend.

"Capitalisation [is] likely to be a source of credit strength for banks as they build toward meeting APRA's expected 'unquestionably strong' capital requirements," Rundell and Donaldson said.

Joye wrote "the authors reiterated previous analysis that suggested the majors' target CET1 ratios will settle at around ten per cent to 10.5 per cent, which "would put the majors at the bottom of the top quartile" of global competitors."

The higher number is where APRA put the Australian banking sector this week.

CBA's analysts forecast, Joye wrote, that  "'additional capital raisings are expected to meet the aforementioned higher capitalisation standards' with the majors having multiple levers to pull, including 'dividend reinvestment plans and dividend cuts, which will carry part of the load'.

"'However, we also expect additional issuance will be required.'

Rundell and Donaldson conclude that the majors suffer from a "current pro-forma [CET1] shortfall of $30 to $32 billion across the sector, which should be manageable, but likely remain a drag on equity performance".

Rundell and Donaldson go on to project that Australia's large banks will shift one notch of government support, which will be offset by an increase to their stand-alone credit profiles from "a" to "a+".

Senior bond ratings will be unaffected, while subordinated bonds would be upgraded to "A-" to "A" if Rundell and Donaldson have it right.

Joye finished: "CBA is to be commended for allowing its analysts to publish these bold statements, which contradict management's public position that no further capital raising is necessary."