Clampdown likely on banks' 'excessive' risk-model variation

Vienna

GLOBAL regulators are preparing to narrow banks' options for assessing credit risk in a bid to prevent the understatement of possible losses.

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision will publish a report by early November on "excessive" variability in the models banks use to assign risk and measure capital needs, secretary-general Bill Coen said in an interview at the regulator's headquarters in Basel, Switzerland. The document has been prepared for the Group of 20 nations.