As the G20 turns the spotlight on auditors, there’s little appetite for mandatory rotation as a solution to the profession’s failings By David Keefe

Oversight council approves criteria for designating non-bank financial firms as ‘systemic’. Firms anxious to avoid the label

Drive for a common rulebook provokes a backlash in Europe’s biggest economy. Threat seen to banking’s diverse character By Klaus C Engelen

Still many doubts over plans to write-down creditors of ailing banks. Race to finalise ‘resolution’ rules by June G20 summit

A selection of news items generated by the American regulatory reform agenda

MADRID/BASEL – International regulators have issued new standards aimed at strengthening the resilience and reducing the operational risks of financial market infrastructures (FMIs). Often referred to as the plumbing in the global financial markets, the failure of an FMI can have disastrous consequences and cost users huge sums. These infrastructures, which include systemically important payment systems, central securities depositories, securities settlement systems, central counterparties and trade repositories, in fact performed well during the financial crisis. But their importance is growing as, for example, all standardised over-the-counter derivative contracts are cleared through central counterparties.

BASEL – The world’s largest banks would have needed an aggregate €485.6 billion ($638 billion) more equity in mid-2011 if the 7% Basel III core equity capital requirement had been in force at the time. That is revealed by a monitoring exercise undertaken by regulators at the Basel Committee, which drafted the Basel III package of capital and liquidity reforms issued at the end of 2010, and due to be phased-in over a six-year period starting in 2013.

BRUSSELS – The proposed EU law to regulate the vast over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market received overwhelming backing from the European Parliament at the end of March, 18 months after the EU executive first submitted proposals for a European Markets Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR). Lawmakers voted by 602 to 23 in favour of the regulation, with 27 abstentions. This followed a deal two months earlier in the co-legislative body, the European Council, representing the bloc’s member countries (see February issue of GRR).

WASHINGTON – Daily tension exists between US accounting standard-setters and their international counterparts over the issue of rules-based versus principles-based rules, according to America’s chief accounting rule-maker.

WASHINGTON – Sustained effort and effective cooperation among the Group of Twenty (G20) leading economies is needed to achieve “the promised deliverables” on financial reform for the G20 leaders’ summit in Mexico in June, according to Financial Stability Board (FSB) chairman Mark Carney.