Zurich (awp/afp) – The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision carried out an update of its fundamental principles on Thursday to take into account the lessons of the last ten years, with particular emphasis on climate risks and the digitalization of finance, he announced Thursday.
Some 220 central bankers and representatives of banking sector supervisory authorities met on April 24 and 25 in Basel, Switzerland, to discuss the main principles aimed at regulating the banking sector.
This committee, responsible for defining the rules imposed on the banking sector, launched a review of these principles in 2022 with the objective of “reflecting the structural changes affecting the banking system and lessons learned since their last revision in 2012”, indicates he said in a press release.
Although the rules had been considerably tightened after the 2007-2008 financial crisis, “more recent crises, such as the Covid-19 pandemic and banking crises have reinforced the importance of the resilience of the banking system in the face of a range of new shocks”, explains the Basel Committee document detailing the update of these principles.
Last year, the financial sector was put to the test in March by the bankruptcy of the American banks Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Silvergate and Signature, as well as by the rescue of the Credit Suisse bank, bought in an emergency by its rival UBS under pressure from the Swiss authorities to prevent it from going under.
“Beyond financial risks”, significant efforts have been made to ensure that banks are able to “resist, adapt and recover” from events such as pandemics, cyber incidents, failures technological and natural disasters”, details the document from this committee based in Switzerland.
The emphasis was placed on the digitalization of finance “which changes consumer behavior and the way in which financial services are provided”, notes the Basel Committee, with the risk, among other things, that episodes of banking stress will spread. faster”.
The Basel Committee also took into account climate change and the resulting risks for the banking system, believing that banks must seek to understand how it can affect them and ensure they are contained.
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