100 countries back tighter banking supervision

More than 100 countries support key changes to international bank regulation principles as a result of the global financial crisis, the Basel Committee of banking supervisory authorities said Friday. "Drawing on lessons learnt during the financial crisis that began in 2007, the revised Core Principles represent a significant step forward" from previous lists of principles drawn up by Basel Committees in 2006, the committee said in a statement. Banking supervisors and central bankers representing more than 100 countries, who had gathered in Istanbul on Thursday and Friday for an international conference, endorsed the revised set of 29 core principles, the committee said. The revisions addressed "many of the significant risk management weaknesses and other vulnerabilities highlighted in the financial crisis," the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) explained. The principles were changed to among other things to highlight the need for more intense supervision of systemically important banks, for supervisors to help identify, analyse and take preemptive action to address systemic risk and for more effective crisis management. "Supervisors and banks have made considerable strides in strengthening banks risk management and supervisory practices since the onset of the crisis," Basel Committee chairman and head of the Swedish central bank Stefan Ingves said in the statement. The revisions were made by a group comprising banking supervisors from both member and non-member countries of the Basel Committee, along with regional banking supervisor groups, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Islamic Financial Services Board, the committee said. While the committee said the changes would help foster "financial stability globally," it acknowledged that some of the required measures involved such big steps that "supervisory authorities may need to make their transition ... over time."