The poet of risk regulation

Jaime Caruana has been seeking harmony in his role as chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. Now that the final text of the new Basel Accord has finally been released, Caruana can comment on the work he has done – and give his views on the preparedness of Spanish banks.

Central bankers are not expected to be conversant with the works of poets. But in a banking conference held in July in Madrid, Jaime Caruana, the chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and governor of the Bank of Spain, quoted a passage from the poet TS Eliot, in presenting the hardships confronting the supervision committee over the implementation of the new Basel Capital Accord: “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning.” Such