Lack of trust is the issue, says Europe\'s top regulator, as arcane disputes continue over IAS 39 and insurer mismatches

The new joint committee bringing together Basel bank regulators and securities markets supervisors, to look at capital adequacy requirements for the trading activities of banks and investment firms, is likely to spread its net more widely than initially thought.

WASHINGTON - Banking supervisors should `clean up\' their definition of capital as a first step to getting the regulatory fundamentals right as US banks head for fresh expansionary times, a top US federal banking supervisor said in March.

SEOUL - The shortcomings of South Korea\'s hastily introduced system of integrated financial supervision in 1998 have been made good to a great extent, but a number of areas still call for improvement, the country\'s central bank governor said in February.

KUWAIT - The banking sector in Kuwait is one of the strongest in the Gulf region, and among emerging markets, according to the report card just produced by bank credit analysts at Standard & Poor\'s, the credit rating agency.

ACCRA - Banking supervisors in West and Central Africa face very difficult tasks and challenges with the Basel II upgrade of international minimum capital rules for bank safety, Bank of Ghana governor Paul Acquah said in February as reported by the Ghana News Agency.

MELBOURNE, Australia - National Australia Bank (NAB) released in March the report it commissioned from professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) into the loss of A$360 million (US$280 million, €224 million) in unauthorised currency option trading which the bank announced in January.

LONDON - Global banking regulators say their counterparts in the accounting world must make their deliberations more transparent to the outside world.

LONDON - HSBC banking group expects the cost of regulation, which was some $400 million in 2003, to rise further as new rules such as the Basel II bank capital requirements come into force, HSBC chairman John Bond said in March.

WASHINGTON - The US Federal Reserve Board released two studies in early March on the impact of the Basel II capital rules on US banking, but was criticised by one leading US lawmaker for being slow off the mark.