With any jigsaw puzzle, it takes time before the full picture starts to become visible. Look at any single piece in isolation, and the picture is unrecognizable. Slot several of the pieces into place, and the image slowly starts to take shape.
A comparison of sorts can be made with the package of capital, leverage and liquidity reforms being introduced by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. The Group of 20 (G-20) has set out the picture it wants to end up with: a Basel III framework with an increase in the level and quality of capital banks must hold compared with the pre-crisis Basel II.
But the G-20 has also decreed that any work to refine and calibrate elements of the Basel III rules prior to their finalization and implementation should be made without further significantly increasing overall capital requirements across the banking sector. This is where it’s hard to see how the pieces come together.
The latest segment of the capital jigsaw to be slotted into place is the Fundamental Review of the Trading Book (FRTB), an initiative to overhaul market risk requirements. In its January publication of the final FRTB framework, the Basel Committee estimated the revised standard would result in a weighted mean increase of approximately 40% in total market risk capital requirements. That estimate, though, was based on a recalibration of quantitative-impact-study data from an earlier version of the rules.
The full blog post is available here: https://isda.derivativiews.org/2016/04/21/frtb-one-piece-of-the-capital-puzzle/
