MELBOURNE, Australia – Regulators will ensure that Australia’s banks have taken all reasonable steps towards meeting their short-term regulatory liquidity requirements through their own balance sheet management before relying on a special central bank facility, the country’s top financial regulator said in July.

STOCKHOLM – Sweden’s Financial Supervisory Authority (Finansinspektionen) is proposing that the country’s largest banks should adopt the new, Basel III short-term liquidity ratio two years ahead of the internationally-agreed timetable. One key element of the Basel III framework hammered out in 2010 requires banks to hold sufficient highly liquid assets to survive a 30-day period of market stress. This requirement known as the liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) is due to take effect around the world in 2015.

LONDON – The “exceptional” and “temporary” core Tier 1 capital ratio of 9% that a block of European banks were required to achieve by June 30, is now likely to be permanent. This target ratio was set in December 2011, amid the worsening Eurozone sovereign debt crisis by the European Banking Authority (EBA), the London-based pan-EU supervisory watchdog.

BASEL – Global regulators are calling for private sector experts to join a panel to support the launch by March 2013 of a system for tagging financial trades.

WASHINGTON – The International Monetary Fund believes the immediate priority for the eurozone is to set up a banking union and move toward more fiscal integration to help stem the decline in confidence engulfing the region amid its banking and sovereign debt crises.

BASEL – Global banking regulators have inaugurated consultations on effective so-called risk data aggregation and on monitoring indicators for intraday liquidity management. Both exercises are aimed at tightening bank risk management in the wake of the global financial crisis.

ABU DHABI – The UAE central bank (CBUAE) is introducing a new law requiring banks in the Gulf state to hold high quality liquid assets equal to 10% of their liabilities starting from January 2013. The new rule, published on the CBUAE website in mid-July, comes as the central bank prepares the sector to comply with the Basel III global standards for bank capital and liquidity.

WASHINGTON – The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has appointed Paul Beswick as its acting chief accountant to replace James Kroeker who has left the post of chief accountant for a private sector role.

WASHINGTON – The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted by a narrow margin in July to require exchanges and a broker oversight group to build a single system to monitor and analyse trading activity across US equity and options markets.

BASEL – Unsurprisingly, global insurance regulators have concluded that traditional reinsurance, the business of insuring insurers, is unlikely to cause or amplify risk to the financial system at large. In a sequel* to a report last year that found traditional insurance carried little or no systemic risk, the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) came to the same conclusion in respect of reinsurance.