Examining The Impact Of The Proposed Rules To Implement Basel Iii Capital Standards

Examining the impact of the proposed rules to implement Basel III capital standards : joint hearing before the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit and the Subcommittee on Insurance, Housing, and Community Opportunity of the Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives, One Hundred Twelfth Congress, second session, November 29, 2012.

The Basel III international regulatory framework, which was produced in 2010 by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision at the Bank for International Settlements, is the latest in a series of evolving agreements among central banks and bank supervisory authorities to standardize bank capital requirements, among other measures. Capital serves as a cushion against unanticipated financial shocks, which can otherwise lead to insolvency. The Basel III regulatory reform package revises the definition of regulatory capital and increases capital holding requirements for banking organizations. This book summarizes the higher capital requirements for U.S. banks regulated for safety and soundness. It examines how the U.S. Basel III regulations may affect U.S. banks, including smaller ones; and implementation of Basel III by different countries and other jurisdictions may affect U.S. banking organizations' international competitiveness.

The paper seeks to identify strategies of commercial banks in response to higher capital requirements of Basel III reform and its phase-in. It focuses on a sample of nine EU emerging market countries and picks up 5 largest banks in each country assessing their response. The paper finds that all banking sectors raised CAR ratios mainly through retained earnings. In countries where the banking sector struggled with profitability, banks have resorted to issuance of new equity or shrunk the size of their balance sheets to meet the higher capital-adequacy requirements. Worries echoed at the early stage of Basel III compilation, namely that commercial banks would shrink their balance sheet by reducing their lending to meet stricter capital requirements, did materialize only in banks struggling with profitability.

On December 7, 2017, final agreement was reached on the long-awaited revised bank capital rules known as Basel III. This volume presents the findings of day long symposium hosted by the Institute for Law and Finance on January 29, 2018, dedicated to explaining what has actually been accomplished, what has been left out and what it all means for financial institutions, investors and the public interest.

Staff Discussion Notes showcase the latest policy-related analysis and research being developed by individual IMF staff and are published to elicit comment and to further debate. These papers are generally brief and written in nontechnical language, and so are aimed at a broad audience interested in economic policy issues. This Web-only series replaced Staff Position Notes in January 2011.