Basel III: Post-Financial Crisis International Financial Regulatory Reform

Abstract

In the global finaneial crisis of2007-2009, concern of systemic risk ultimately forced many national govemments to take unpreeedented action to injeet liquidity, provide capital support and give guarantees to domestic and international financial institutions considered as systemically important or 'too big to fail,' thereby exposing taxpayers to losses associated with the aggressive, highly-leveraged investment decisions made by these financial institutions. The new Basel IlI, orchestrated by the Group ofTwenty (G-20) countries which monitor its implementation through the operation ofthe Finaneial Stability Board (FSB), is set to address and mitigate the systematic risk problem by substantially increasing bank capital requiremcnts. This artiele aims to critically examine and analyse why and how the Base! III framework is being cmployed to markedly reduce, at least theoretically, banks' incentives to take excessive risks, lowering the likelihood and severity of future crises and enabling banks to withstand, without the need for extraordinary government support, stresses of a magnitude associated with or similar to the global finaneial crisis of2007-2009.