Basel III

BASEL III is a new global regulatory standard on bank capital adequacy and liquidity agreed by the members of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. The third of the Basel Accords was developed in a response to the deficiencies in financial regulation revealed by the global financial crisis. Basel III strengthens bank capital requirements and introduces new regulatory requirements on bank liquidity and bank leverage. The OECD estimates that the implementation of Basel III will decrease annual GDP growth by 0.05 to 0.15 percentage point.

Overview

Basel III will require banks to hold 4.5% of common equity (up from 2% in Basel II) and 6% of Tier I capital (up from 4% in Basel II) of risk-weighted assets (RWA). Basel III also introduces additional capital buffers, (i) a mandatory capital conservation buffer of 2.5% and (ii) a discretionary countercyclical buffer, which allows national regulators to require up to another 2.5% of capital during periods of high credit growth. In addition, Basel III introduces a minimum 3% leverage ratio and two required liquidity ratios. The Liquidity Coverage Ratio requires a bank to hold sufficient high-quality liquid assets to cover its total net cash flows over 30 days; the Net Stable Funding Ratio requires the available amount of stable funding to exceed the required amount of stable funding over a one-year period of extended stress.

Summary of proposed changes

• First, the quality, consistency, and transparency of the capital base will be raised.
  • Tier 1 capital: the predominant form of Tier 1 capital must be common shares and retained earnings
  • Tier 2 capital instruments will be harmonised
  • Tier 3 capital will be eliminated.
• Second, the risk coverage of the capital framework will be strengthened.
  • Promote more integrated management of market and counterparty credit risk
  • Add the CVA (credit valuation adjustment)-risk due to deterioration in counterparty's credit rating
  • Strengthen the capital requirements for counterparty credit exposures arising from banks’ derivatives, repo and securities financing transactions
  • Raise the capital buffers backing these exposures
  • Reduce procyclicality and
  • Provide additional incentives to move OTC derivative contracts to central counterparties (probably clearing houses)
  • Provide incentives to strengthen the risk management of counterparty credit exposures
  • Raise counterparty credit risk management standards also by including the wrong-way risk
• Third, the Committee will introduce a leverage ratio as a supplementary measure to the Basel II risk-based framework.
  • The Committee therefore is introducing a leverage ratio requirement that is intended to achieve the following objectives:
    • Put a floor under the build-up of leverage in the banking sector
    • Introduce additional safeguards against model risk and measurement error by supplementing the risk based measure with a simpler measure that is based on gross exposures.
• Fourth, the Committee is introducing a series of measures to promote the build up of capital buffers in good times that can be drawn upon in periods of stress ("Reducing procyclicality and promoting countercyclical buffers").
  • The Committee is introducing a series of measures to address procyclicality:
    • Dampen any excess cyclicality of the minimum capital requirement;
    • Promote more forward looking provisions;
    • Conserve capital to build buffers at individual banks and the banking sector that can be used in stress; and
  • Achieve the broader macroprudential goal of protecting the banking sector from periods of excess credit growth.
    • Requirement to use long term data horizons to estimate probabilities of default,
    • downturn loss-given-default estimates, recommended in Basel II, to become mandatory
    • Improved calibration of the risk functions, which convert loss estimates into regulatory capital requirements.
    • Banks must conduct stress tests that include widening credit spreads in recessionary scenarios.
  • Promoting stronger provisioning practices (forward looking provisioning):
    • Advocating a change in the accounting standards towards an expected loss (EL) approach (usually, EL amount := LGD*PD*EAD).
• Fifth, the Committee is introducing a global minimum liquidity standard for internationally active banks that includes a 30-day liquidity coverage ratio requirement underpinned by a longer-term structural liquidity ratio called the Net Stable Funding Ratio.
• The Committee also is reviewing the need for additional capital, liquidity or other supervisory measures to reduce the externalities created by systemically important institutions.

As on Sept 2010, Proposed Basel III norms ask for ratios as: 7-9.5%(4.5% +2.5%(conservation buffer) + 0-2.5%(seasonal buffer)) for Common equity and 8.5-11% for tier 1 cap and 10.5 to 13 for total capital (Proposed Basel III Guidelines: A Credit Positive for Indian Banks)'

Macroeconomic Impact of Basel III

An OECD study released on 17 February 2011, estimates that the medium-term impact of Basel III implementation on GDP growth is in the range of −0.05 to −0.15 percentage point per annum. Economic output is mainly affected by an increase in bank lending spreads as banks pass a rise in bank funding costs, due to higher capital requirements, to their customers. To meet the capital requirements effective in 2015 (4.5% for the common equity ratio, 6% for the Tier 1 capital ratio), banks are estimated to increase their lending spreads on average by about 15 basis points. The capital requirements effective as of 2019 (7% for the common equity ratio, 8.5% for the Tier 1 capital ratio) could increase bank lending spreads by about 50 basis points. The estimated effects on GDP growth assume no active response from monetary policy. To the extent that monetary policy will no longer be constrained by the zero lower bound, the Basel III impact on economic output could be offset by a reduction (or delayed increase) in monetary policy rates by about 30 to 80 basis points.

Key dates

Date	Actual/ Planned	Milestone
December 19, 2009	Actual	BIS published documents for public review/comment
April 16, 2010	Actual	End of the public comment period
April 23, 2010	Actual	Meeting of G-20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors, 23 April 2010
June 3–5, 2010	Actual	Meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors. Busan, Korea
June 26—27, 2010	Actual	G-20 Toronto Summit
12 September 2010	Actual	Basel Committee set a minimum common equity level of 7%, plus a further counter-cyclical buffer containing up to 2.5% of risk-weighted assets.
November 11–12, 2010	Actual	G-20 Seoul Summit
December 16, 2010	Actual	Publication of Basel III rules text and results of the quantitative impact study
December 31, 2010	Planned	Fully calibrated set of standards will be developed
December 31, 2011	Planned	All major G-20 financial centers commit to have adopted the Basel III Capital Framework by 2011
December 31, 2019	Planned	Target for full implementation of Basel III

In the news

Update on June 5–6 Meetings in Busan, Korea

• The official Communiqué Meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors, Busan, Republic of Korea; June 5, 2010.
• "Sustaining world economic growth is the most important item on the G-20 agenda this weekend," said British Chancellor George Osborne.
• U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner: "said the world cannot again bank on the cash-strapped U.S. consumer to drive growth and urged other nations to stimulate their own demand."
• "All participants agreed on the importance of financial repair and fiscal structural reform, and a consensus was made to put in place credible, growth-friendly measures differentiated for and tailored to national circumstances to deliver fiscal sustainability."
• "We are not in favour of having taxation on the banks. We suggested that ultimately you please take it up through the regulatory route...By and large, it was accepted," Mukherjee told reporters in New Delhi today, a day after his return from the G-20 ministerial at Busan in South Korea.

Current news

In addition to articles used for references (see References), this section will list links to 5-10 recent high-quality, publicly-available current news articles relevant to Basel III. This section may be updated frequently as Basel III is currently under development and therefore is in the news.

Date	Source	Article Title / Link	Comments
Jun 2011	The Banker	Has Basel got its numbers wrong?	Regulators face a tricky task in setting appropriate capital charges for counterparty risk and The Banker investigates the potential pitfalls.
Jun 2011	BNP Paribas: Economic Research Department	Basel III: no Achilles' spear	BNP Paribas' Economic Research Department study on Basel III.
Feb 2011	OECD: Economics Department	Macroeconomic Impact of Basel III	OECD analysis on the macroeconomic impact of Basel III.
Jan 2011	Moody's Analytics	Basel III New Capital and Liquidity Standards FAQs	Basel III standards, key elements of new regulations, framework, and key implementation dates.
May 2010	OECD Journal: Financial Market Trends	Thinking Beyond Basel III	OECD study on Basel I, Basel II and III.
May 2010	Risk.net	Systemic risk regulators should direct policy not just give warnings, says HSBC's Haswell	Goodhart and Haswell were speaking at a seminar held on Basel III and banking regulation, hosted by the UK's National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) on May 18.
May 2010	Investorschronicle.co.uk	Can we bank on Basel?	Broad/balanced overview of potential impacts of Basel III
May 2010	www.thelawyer.com	UK banks fend off mooted pre-election facelift	Politics & Bank Regulation in the U.K.
May 2010	Bloomberg BusinessWeek	FDIC’s Bair Says Europe Should Make Banks Hold More Capital	Bair said regulators around the world need to work together on the next round of capital standards for banks ... the next round of international standards, known as Basel III, which Bair said must meet “very aggressive” goals.
May 2010	Reuters	FACTBOX-G20 progress on financial regulation	Finance ministers from the G20 group of industrial and emerging countries meet in Busan, Korea, on June 4–5 to review pledges made in 2009 to strengthen regulation and learn lessons from the financial crisis.
May 2010	The Economist	The banks battle back A behind-the-scenes brawl over new capital and liquidity rules	"The most important bit of reform is the international set of rules known as “Basel 3”, which will govern the capital and liquidity buffers banks carry. It is here that the most vicious and least public skirmish between banks and their regulators is taking place."
May 2010	Reuters	G20 ministers face more wrangling over bank tax	"Bank capital is like a train in a dark tunnel -- nobody can see it and when it does come out, it does not capture the public's imagination,"
May 2010	The Financial Times	Bankers’ ‘doomsday scenarios’ under fire	"Banks are exaggerating the economic effects of the regulations they are likely to face in the coming years, the economist running an international impact study has told the Financial Times."

See also

• Basel I
• Basel II
• Capital adequacy
• Financial crisis of 2007–2010
• G-20
• Operational risk
• Operational risk management