LONDON – Regulators should consider very carefully any initiatives aimed at restricting activities in the huge repo business, and avoid unintended damage to a market which plays a key role at the centre of the financial system. This is particularly important given the greater reliance that will be placed on the repo market by regulators and governments in coming years, says an industry White Paper* published in mid-July.

WASHINGTON – The globally coordinated approach to financial reform endorsed by world leaders is threatened by recent national and regional actions, including aspects of the US reform Bill as well as measures taken recently in Europe, the international banking industry warned in late July.

LONDON – Global banking regulators’ support for a new approach to accounting for bank loan losses is coupled with worries about the challenges that reforms, as proposed by the key international accounting body, pose for most banks. The Basel Committee of top banking supervisors has told the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), the London-based body that sets the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) recognised in more than 100 countries, that it strongly supports reforms that would mean the earlier flagging up of loan problems in bank financial statements.

BASEL – Regulators coordinating global financial reforms have launched a review of the way countries are putting into effect regulators’ recommendations on risk disclosures by participants in volatile financial markets.

WASHINGTON – America’s insurers breathed a sigh of relief as passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act presaged sweeping reforms of financial markets, but left the way insurance is regulated pretty much in tact.

PARIS – Carlos Tavares, chairman of the Spanish securities regulatory agency CMVM, becomes chairman of the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR) from August 1 but may serve less than the standard two years.

WASHINGTON – Although it is critical that a robust, common set of capital and liquidity rules for internationally active banks be adopted globally, there must also be sufficient flexibility to allow the rules to be tailored to national conditions, according to US Federal Reserve governor Daniel Tarullo. He was giving testimony in mid-July before a sub-committee of the powerful Senate Banking Committee. Lawmakers were holding hearings on international cooperation and financial regulatory modernisation.

Tough new bank bonus rules in Europe have impressed but are likely to lead to global splits, say critics

Divisions among standard-setters threaten global convergence, as US banking industry mounts campaign against fair value

ISDA’s Antonio Corbi argues that in one accounting controversy – accounting for derivatives – the US is right