Moody's Believes Basel II Changes Are Positive for Creditworthiness

Moody's issued a special comment paper focusing on Basel II amendments already introduced, as well as statements from the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (Risk.net). The paper highlights enhancements relating to a bank's trading book, securitization, and counterparty credit risk. In particular, the recommendations involve strengthening Tier I capital, introducing tougher liquidity standards, including counter-cyclical provisioning, discussing systemic risk provisions (which is becoming popular in the United States), and including leverage ratios as a supplementary measure. Moody's also believes that proposed Capital Requirement Directive changes to the quality of capital and securitization were also a positive step. In addition, the paper mentions that “One important amendment calls for stricter operational requirements for credit analysis for banks holding securitisation exposures. We believe that the increased requirement for credit analysis for banks holding securitised exposures is going to be an important element of improved risk management, and should ensure that only banks with the necessary information and analytical tools hold securitised products.” Of course, it could also mean that less securitization takes place. While this may be the intended result, the unintended consequence of reducing the efficient flow of capital, or not allowing those who want to off-load or bear risk access to the vehicles they need, will also need to be considered further - either now or later.