Banking regulators have quietly taken a major step towards harmonised global regulation by agreeing to raise worldwide capital requirements whenever an individual country declares a credit bubble.
Part of the larger “Basel III” banking reform package, the “countercyclical capital buffer” heralds a step change in the way national banking regulators interact and is the first concrete example of “macroprudential” regulation that seeks to moderate the economic cycle.
“This is very significant, because it takes the regulatory community into protecting the health of the entire system rather than just individual banks,” said Paul Tucker, deputy governor of the Bank of England, who represents the UK at Basel.