After the 2008 crisis, the Basel III agreements profoundly transformed standards. 136331491/Antonio – stock.adobe.com
DECRYPTION – As it stands, recent events have a little taste of revenge for European banks, subject to more rigorous and restrictive protective measures than in the United States.
In the space of a few days, four banks faltered: three institutions went bankrupt in the United States, and Credit Suisse was forced to sell for scrap to its great rival, UBS. And a fifth bank, again American, First Republic, appears on the razor’s edge.
Faced with this epidemic, banking sector regulators and European political authorities are calling for calm. This crisis is not a replica of the 2008 crisis, they repeat in substance. Because the causes are different. And because, since the great financial crisis that swept away international finance fifteen years ago, the rules of the game have changed.
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These rules are the so-called Basel III agreements. A name borrowed from the Swiss city where the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) sits and which houses all the working meetings of central bankers and regulators in the sector. The Basel Committee, which drafts the major international texts, was created in 1974, on the initiative…
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