On April 6, 2016, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision published proposals to revise the existing leverage ratio framework. The proposals include amendments to the: (i) measurement of derivative exposures by adopting a modified version of the standardized approach for measuring counterparty credit risk exposures; (ii) treatment of regular-way purchases and sales of financial assets so as to achieve consistency across accounting standards; (iii) treatment of provisions; and (iv) credit conversion factors for off-balance sheet items by aligning them with the standardized approach to credit risk. In addition, the Basel Committee proposes to impose additional requirements on global systemically important banks, setting out options, including whether the additional requirement should apply uniformly to all G-SIBs or be tailored and whether the form should be a higher minimum requirement or a buffer requirement. Responses to the consultation are due by July 6, 2016. The Basel Committee intends to finalize the revised leverage ratio requirement in 2016 so as to allow time for its implementation by January 1, 2018.
The consultation paper is available at: http://www.bis.org/bcbs/publ/d365.pdf.
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