Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS)
International banking prudential standard-setter, whose standards indirectly influence insurance and reinsurance.
The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision is the international prudential standard-setting body for the banking sector, hosted by the Bank for International Settlements. It develops the Basel accords, successive frameworks defining banks' capital, liquidity and risk-management requirements, then adopted by member jurisdictions. Although dedicated to banking, the Basel Committee is of interest to insurance on several counts: its risk-based capital concepts inspired insurance regimes, its market and credit risk standards concern bancassurers and financial conglomerates, and the comparison between banking and insurance regulation illuminates systemic risk debates. The Basel framework differs markedly from Solvency II, however, in the nature of risks covered: bank liabilities are short-term callable, whereas insurance liabilities build over the duration of contracts. For the observer, understanding Basel helps situate the specificities of the insurance prudential regime.
The risk-based capital concepts popularized by the Basel accords, from the first one in 1988, influenced the design of insurance prudential regimes such as Solvency II.
BCBS, Basel Committee, Basel Accords
Follow the research
One letter a week. First, the week's underwriting note, when one is published: a dated, argued decision, signed by Paul Bernardski. Then what the observatory published on cyber risk, political risk and insurance. No account, no tracking.
No spam, one-click unsubscribe, no data ever sold.