Publications

Today the U.S. Federal Reserve Board voted to publish proposed regulations to implement the "Basel III" changes to the international regulatory capital framework, a set of comprehensive reforms issued by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision in response to the global financial crisis.  The Federal Reserve Board also voted to publish final rules on market risk capital.  These long-awaited actions by the U.S. banking regulators – which include three notices of proposed rulemaking in which the Fed finally describes how it proposes to implement Basel III – will have profound impact on the financial services industry.  In 700 pages of dense, technical detail, the Fed lays out the most far-reaching changes in capital requirements to be made in more than two decades and seeks public comment for at least the next 90 days.  For banking organizations with a high proportion of trading assets and liabilities, the final market risk capital rule prescribes methods for calculating the market risk capital requirement for foreign exchange and commodities positions and certain trading assets and liabilities.  Each of the Fed's actions is discussed briefly in this briefing.  We will provide comprehensive analyses in subsequent client briefings.

Download Full Report