Accord preparations: the rest is yet to come

While the debates have raged for months about many aspects of the proposed Basel II Accord, on some points there has been relative silence, in particular with regard to the seeming overreliance on statistical techniques.

The Bank for International Settlements’ proposed Basel II Accord will fundamentally change the regulatory framework for credit and operational risk. It will have an impact on the business conduct of banks around the world, on the types of activity they will find viable and on the market segments they will cover. Ultimately, it will affect the overall stability and robustness of the financial system.

There has been intense and, at times, fierce debate about the implementation details of the