17 December 2020

BIS: Basel III monitoring results based on end-December 2019 data published by the Basel Committee

Prior to Covid-19, large internationally active banks made further progress towards meeting fully phased-in final Basel III capital requirements; liquidity ratios improved compared with end-June 2019; Basel III monitoring dashboard gradually introduces an interactive visualisation of the results

Today the Basel Committee published the results of its latest Basel III monitoring exercise, based on data as of 31 December 2019. The report sets out the impact of the Basel III framework that was initially agreed in 2010 as well as the effects of the Committee's December 2017 finalisation of the Basel III reforms and the finalisation of the market risk framework published in January 2019. Given the December 2019 reporting date, the results do not reflect the economic impact of Covid-19 on participating banks. Nevertheless, the Committee believes that the information contained in the report will provide relevant stakeholders with a useful benchmark for analysis.

Data are provided for 173 banks, including 105 large internationally active banks. These "Group 1" banks are defined as internationally active banks that have Tier 1 capital of more than €3 billion, and include all 30 institutions that have been designated as global systemically important banks (G-SIBs). The Basel Committee's sample also includes 68 "Group 2" banks (ie banks that have Tier 1 capital of less than €3 billion or are not internationally active).

The final Basel III minimum requirements will be implemented by 1 January 2023 and fully phased in by 1 January 2028. The average impact of the fully phased-in final Basel III framework on the Tier 1 minimum required capital (MRC) of Group 1 banks is lower (+1.8%) when compared with the 2.5% increase at end-June 2019 (see the "reduced estimation bias" part of the table below). For this calculation, for three G-SIBs that are outliers due to overly conservative assumptions under the revised market risk framework, zero change from the revised market risk framework has been assumed for the calculation of 31 December 2019 results. If these three banks are included with their conservative market risk numbers (see the "conservative estimation" part of the table), there is a 2.1% increase.

The capital shortfalls at the end-December 2019 reporting date are €10.7 billion for Group 1 banks at the target level, in comparison with €16.6 billion at end-June 2019. The capital shortfalls are not affected by estimation bias.

The monitoring exercises also collect bank data on Basel III's liquidity requirements. The weighted average Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) increased to 138% for the Group 1 bank sample and to 186% for Group 2 banks. All but one bank in the sample reported an LCR that met or exceeded 100%. The weighted average Net Stable Funding Ratio (NSFR) increased slightly to 117% for the Group 1 bank sample and to 122% for the Group 2 bank sample. As of December 2019, around 96% of the banks in the NSFR sample reported a ratio that met or exceeded 100%, while all Group 1 banks reported an NSFR at or above 90%.

For the first time, the report is accompanied by a Tableau-style dashboard that presents the results of the liquidity section of the Basel III monitoring report using an interactive tool to visualise the data. Similar dashboards related to other sections of the report may be added at a later stage.

BASEL Committee

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