Le novità di Basilea III e le implicazioni per le banche italiane

Basel III rules have been under a review process in the last years and the recent international crises has further slowed down the implementation of the new banking regulation. In this paper, we first present the reasons that have brought to the Basel III framework – development of the previous Basel I and Basel II Accords – and the possible operational and strategic consequences for the banks. The new rules derive from critical issues arisen within the previous regulation, namely:  Most of the banks that faced losses during the crises, or that received State aid, had an equity ratio highly above the minimum Basel II threshold. It follows that not only a minimum capital ratio matters, but also its quality does.  Many international banking groups that were in line with the minimum capital ratio requirements usually exhibited a high leverage ratio.  The need to comply to the capital adequacy requirements could potentially be able to intensify both positive and negative phases of the economic cycle (procyclicality).  A large number of big banks, that usually relied upon interbank liquidity, have been able to face the crises only thanks to the long term refinancing operations put in place by the Central Banks.  During the last financial crises, various systemically important banks have been saved by national Governments in order to avoid bankruptcies and systemic crises (too big to fail). Given this, the main changes introduced by the Basel Committee to face the above mentioned weaknesses are:  Quantitative and qualitative redefinition of the regulatory capital.  Introduction of the capital buffers in order to shrink the procyclicality issue.  Supervision concerning the national implementation of the new rules and the related implications, also pertaining the local banks.  Constant check concerning the amplitude of the improved conditions in terms of lending supply, as a consequence of the tougher regulation.  Tools to control for the size of the risks in case of global crises. The second part of this paper (chapter 3) empirically analyses the implications, to Italian banks, of the new rules with a main focus to the basic regulatory capital requirements