The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (the Committee) recently met to discuss key items impacting the financial service markets.

The Basel Committee announced it will be revising the Core principles for effective banking supervision (Core Principles). Following comment letters from stakeholders, including the World Council of Credit Unions, the Committee approved the first revisions to the Core Principles since 2012. The final standards will be published following the International Conference of Banking Supervisors at the end of April. The Core Principles are global standards for prudential regulation and supervision. Supervisory authorities across the globe use the Core Principles as a benchmark for evaluating the effectiveness of their regulatory and supervisory frameworks. World Council strongly urged the Basel Committee to include more direct language concerning proportionality and communication with national level supervisory authorities. We also highlighted the disproportionate burden recent regulatory guidance places on credit unions in key areas, such as operational resilience, stress testing, and climate risk management. Click here to read the comment letter submitted by World Council.

During their recent meeting the Committee also discussed developing risks to the global banking system, window-dressing behavior by large banks, and the status of Basel III implementation.

The Committee discussed climate-related financial risks as one of the top ongoing and developing risks for financial institutions. It discussed scenario analysis as a tool for assessing the resilience of financial institutions business models, strategies, and overall risk profile. A discussion paper will be published in the coming months on the use of climate scenario analysis by banks and supervisors. The Committee also discussed sector risks, including segments of commercial real estate facing headwinds and banks’ interconnections with non-bank financial intermediaries.

Finally, the Committee reported on the implementation status of the outstanding Basel III standards, issued in 2017. Implementation is progressing but is uneven between countries. The Committee approved a workplan for the jurisdictional assessments of the implementation of these standards as part of the Committee’s Regulatory Consistency Assessment Programme.  

Click here for more information on the updates provided by the Basel Committee.