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Basel Committee on Banking Supervision

International financial regulatory body

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  • 5 chapters

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Through Basel, Switzerland and Central bank

Lab · Class 7–12Money, Banking & Credit

The Basel Committee sets global standards for the prudential regulation and supervision of banks. It has no formal supranational authority, and its decisions do not have legal force; members commit to implementing and applying its standards in their domestic jurisdictions.

The committee was established by the central bank governors of the Group of Ten (G10) countries in 1974. As such and despite the G10's name, it had twelve founding members, namely the respective authorities from Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Name

At its creation in 1974, the new body was formally named the Committee on Regulations and Supervisory Practices. It quickly became known as the Basle Committee, using a traditional English spelling for the city of Basel. It has used the current spelling to refer to itself since 1999.

The BCBS is not the only committee hosted by the BIS in Basel, as it coexists with the Committee on the Global Financial System, Markets Committee, Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, and Irving Fisher Committee on Central Bank Statistics among others. Even so, the shorthand "Basel Committee" is widely used to refer exclusively to the BCBS.

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