Banking News

Basel Committee review 2016 rules on bank capital

(23 March 2018 – Global) The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision indicated it would ease some 2016 rules that force banks to hold more capital against their trading books.  

The Committee also confirmed that the implementation of the market-risk rules which was scheduled for next year is now being pushed back until 2022. This “is intended to allow banks additional time to develop the systems infrastructure needed to apply the standard and for the Committee to address certain specific outstanding issues,” the Basel Committee said.

The revisions are expected to slightly lower the overall impact on banks’ risk capital requirement with particular focus on the standardised regulatory model for calculating market risk.

For banks to be able to use their own bespoke models, they must pass the ‘Profit and Loss Attribution test’, which in the 2016 rules was a simple pass/fail test. The revisions – which are subject to a consultation – introduce a more gradated “traffic light” system, where trading desks in the amber zone would not have to transfer to the full weight of the standardised model.