• Most Popular
  • Most Shared

UPDATE 1-Emerging markets must embrace new bank rules-Wellink

Fri Sep 3, 2010 1:52pm IST

* Wellink urges emerging economies to adopt new bank rules

* Faces opposition from some emerging economy officials

* Draghi: new reforms will not be imposed on all economies (Adds comments from FSB's Draghi)

SEOUL, Sept 3 (Reuters) - The head of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision urged emerging market economies on Friday to adopt news rules on bank capital even though they may feel they have sufficient regulatory arrangements in place.

Nout Wellink argued that countries should not use the excuse that they did not cause the global credit crisis as a reason to sidestep the implementation of new standards.

"I should point out that all (countries) were affected indirectly through the global economic downturn. This includes emerging market economies," he told a conference on financial reform in Seoul.

However, policymakers from a number of emerging market economies said the new rules failed to take into account their need for further economic growth.

"The issues of financial sector reform are beginning to overshadow the macroeconomic problems we face," said Lesetja Kganyago, director-general of South Africa's National Treasury, noting that requirements for banks to hold more cash didn't take into account the impact of capital inflows to emerging market economies.

Nguyen Van Binh, deputy governor of Vietnam's central bank, said some of the new rules proposed by the Basel Committee were inappropriate for developing nations.

"The regulations agreed by the developed countries may work for the big banks in the developed world but might not work well for small banks in the developing world," he said.

Both Binh and Kganyago, sitting on a panel with Wellink, said that the proposed new liquidity rules were the main concern for the banks within their country.

"The rules shouldn't result in a disruption of capital flows," he said.

Mario Draghi, chairman of the Financial Stability Board, said the new reforms would not be imposed on all economies.

"Part of the reforms will be the same because it is a level playing field but then you have to recognise that countries and different jurisdictions do differ," he said.

"So some of these rules will have to be adapted by the supervisors from the relevant authorities to the countries' realities," he said.

The Basel Committee will meet in Switzerland next Tuesday to finalise the rules, paving the way for endorsement of the reforms by leaders of the Group of 20 major nations in November. (Reporting by Rachel Armstrong; Editing by Kazunori Takada)

Comments (0)
This discussion is now closed. We welcome comments on our articles for a limited period after their publication.