Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – More stringent rules for banks, designed to strengthen individual institutions as well as the financial system as a whole, are recommended by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision in its latest consultative proposals published 17 December. Banks will need to increase their capital base, introduce more stringent risk controls and limit much unsecured business if proposed new rules are adopted in three years. The proposals suggest:
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Finma, Switzerland’s Financial Market Supervisory Authority, is to require cantonal banks and cooperative banks to submit to the capital adequacy rules to which other financial institutions are subject in Switzerland. These banks will have to improve and extend their capital base by increasing equity. They were allowed exceptions to the rules until now.
Cantonal banks, notably, will no longer benefit from the implicit advantage they have of tax-payer support should they get into difficulties, but will have to be run on much the same lines as normal commercial banks.
