LONDON—The Basel II capital adequacy standard may, in some cases, overstate banks’ risks in securitisation transactions, according to Fitch Ratings, the credit rating agency. Similarly, the adoption of the International Financial reporting Standards (IFRS) also results in an over statement of banks’ retained risks in securitised assets, the agency says in a special report published in late July.*

PARIS – The US and Europe are closer than appears on the implementation of the international Basel II bank safety rules, according to one of Europe’s most senior banking regulators.

BASEL, Switzerland – Stefan Walter, a senior vice-president at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, has been appointed Secretary General of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision with effect from September 4.

BASEL, Switzerland – Global banking regulators are pondering what future role Nick Le Pan, who in July surprised Canada’s financial sector by announcing his intended resignation as head of the country’s financial services watchdog body, can play in aiding the worldwide implementation of the Basel II bank safety rules.

HONG KONG – Adoption of the Basel II bank safety rules is something that is achievable by all banks in Hong Kong by the planned introduction date of January, 2007, according to Simon Topping, who heads the banking policy department at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA).

PLYMOUTH, England – Risk management consultants Quadrant Risk Management (International) said in July that the first two implementations of its “SAB2” Basel II compliance application are under way, one in the UK and the other in Africa. SAB2 is Quadrant’s solution to compliance under the standardised approaches to credit and operational risk under the Basel II bank capital adequacy rules.

National discretionary options highlight the challenge facing regulators in achieving the aim of consistent international bank capital standards under Basel II, according to credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s.

US supervisors may undermine much of the benefit hoped from Basel II by making the advanced approaches to measuring credit and operational risk extremely dependent on their decisions, a leading regulatory analyst said in late April.

Preparation for new capital rules on track regardless of financial failures and takeover battles. Big advances in risk management

BERLIN – As expected, global banking regulators decided to leave the current calibration factor for the Basel II capital rules unchanged after reviewing the results of the most recent test of the complex rules, the last such exercise before the regime goes into effect in many countries in January.