Abstract

International Activities to Harmonize Banking Supervision Regulations Concerning Bank Capital: An Interim-State Report (Part 1: Functions and Definition of Equity Capital)

The single European market, which is to be in place from 1 January 1993, forces the German legislative bodies to become active also in the field of banking supervision. By that time, several EC Directives and EC Council Regulations – among them the ones that deal with the adequacy of equity capital of credit institutions and with limiting the risk of banking losses – must have been cast into national law. Harmonizing national banking supervision regulations worldwide is a task attented to by the Committee on Banking Supervision of the Bank for International Settlements in Basle; its requirements in the aforementioned regulatory fields are largely identical with the EC’s perceptions and will enter into effect on 1 January 1993 as well. Banking supervision laws must be internationally harmonized for reasons of competition. In terms of economic and system policy, factors responsible for market failure that might adversely affect the functioning ability of the banking system and lead to capital losses of bank creditors suggest the need for regulating the banking sector. When shaping the basics of the structure of banking supervision, the supervisory authorities decided in favour of allocating equity resources to typical banking risks. Proceeding from a limited catalogue of typical exposures, a specific fraction of the bank’s equity resources must be assumed to underly each of the risky lending and other business transactions; the size of this fraction depends on the type and severity of exposure in anyone case. The two-tier definition of equital capital by the Basle Committee (distinguishing between core and complementary capital) does not in all respects meet the qualitative requirements that must theoretically be fulfilled when looking at the functions of equity capital