Navigation * Home / News / Basel II focus will on implementation and fairness Basel II focus will on implementation and fairness, says Fed’s Olson BRUSSELS, November 15 2005 – Issues of implementation and competitive fairness between institutions will be the focus for some time to come of the Basel II bank safety rules, a top US central banker said today. US Federal Reserve Board governor Mark Olson noted that the complex, risk-focused Basel II capital adequacy regime aimed to get banks to align their capital more accurately to the risks they face. He was speaking at a US/European Union retail banking forum in Brussels, which was organised by the World Savings Banks Institute and the European Savings Banks Group backed by America’s Community Bankers, the trade body for smaller US banks. The officials, from the Fed, the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on the US side and the Committee of European Banking Supervisors and the European Commission on the EU side, agreed the timetable differences created potential problems. But the issues were far from insuperable and co-operation between supervisors on both sides of the Atlantic would help ensure solutions, the officials concurred. On the political front, officials agreed political processes were a necessary part of the implementation of Basel II in both the US and the EU.
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Olson was giving the US perspective on payments systems. But he made some additional remarks on Basel II in the light of panel discussions yesterday at the conference, between US and European Union officials, which were sparked by questions about political hostility to Basel II in the US and problems arising from differences in implementation timetables.
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