International Banking: Strengthening the Framework for Supervising International Banks

The Comptroller of the Currency attended the March 22-23 meeting of the Basle Committee, along with the Senior Deputy Comptroller for Bank Supervision Policy, and will continue to attend as his schedule permits. Senior staff at OCC, the Federal Reserve Board, Federal Reserve of New York, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have begun regular meetings to discuss and act on Basle Committee initiatives. The Basle Committee has decided not to proceed with a peer review program at this time.

The Federal Reserve Board continues to support the Basle Committee's effort to better coordinate international banking supervision and the Committee continues to improve its ability to do so. For instance, the Committee has collected information on various supervisory regimes through questionnaires. The completed questionnaires are now available to other countries upon their request. Peer review is not under consideration at this time. The Board of Governors chose not to bring this suggestion before the Committee. One other Basle Committee member country recommended peer review to the Committee, and the Committee turned this down, possibly because the Basle Committee's Secretariat lacked the resources to create peer review standards.

FDIC officials participated in Basle Committee meetings in June and will attend future meetings. The current major topic is regulating derivative instruments. It has been and continues to be FDIC's practice to participate in the Basle Committee meetings to the fullest extent. The Basle Committee has not specifically made plans to institute peer review. FDIC continues to promote the Basle Committee's role as a forum for coordinating international bank supervision and will support an expanded role for the Committee whenever possible.