Among a litany of concerns over the Basel committee's proposed capital and liquidity reform package, a major theme is the timetable for implementation. Many of the 300 responses to the public consultation which ended on April 16 say more time is needed to comply with the new rules. And significantly higher capital and liquidity requirements will pose a threat to global growth, the bankers say.

Accountants and bankers fear that tougher capital rules planned for global banking could well be undermined by crucial differences over the accounting rules that are central to any reform of financial regulation in the wake of the credit crisis.

A more centralised supervisory framework wins backing from legislators. But it goes further than some governments want

New moves to clamp down further on rating agencies are coming in both EU and US. Backlash against alleged abuses

PARIS – Securities markets regulators in the EU have launched a public consultation on transparency in Europe’s corporate bond, securitised bond and derivative markets, as a prelude to the introduction of tougher new rules. The consultation is being undertaken by the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR), the Paris-based body that advises the European Commission on regulation in the securities field, as part of the review of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID).

BERNE – Switzerland is introducing a tough new liquidity regime for its two largest, systemically important banks, broadly along the lines of the liquidity framework proposed last December by the Basel Committee. The core element of the new Swiss regime, which will come into force on June 30, is a “stringent stress scenario” defined by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) and the Swiss National Bank (SNB).

WASHINGTON – The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is pushing ahead with controversial proposals to require 5% of securitised products to be retained by the issuer or sponsor, despite strong opposition from the finance industry.

WASHINGTON – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) proposal for an ex-ante tax on the banking system to pay for bailouts or recapitalisation of failing institutions is rejected as “without merit” by the industry’s most influential global association. Rejection of the proposal is made in a late-April letter from Charles Dallara, managing director, of the Washington-based Institute of International Finance (IIF) to finance ministers of the Group of 20 most economical important countries.

GENEVA – The International Monetary Fund’s proposal for a levy on all financial firms, not just banks, to pay for future bail-outs inflamed an insurance industry that’s long feared that it’s being unfairly lumped together with banks in the regulatory reaction to the global financial crisis.

MANAMA, Bahrain – Islamic financial institutions will be placed at a disadvantage to conventional banks by the very narrow definition of liquid assets currently proposed by global banking regulators, Malaysia’s central bank chief said in early May.