Leaks have emerged that the Fed, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation are preparing to accept international standards for measuring leverage finalised by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) in January.

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) and the Financial Services Roundtable have called for the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to re-propose rules that would require issuers of asset-backed securities to disclose asset-level data.

In a written statement issued on March 28, Senate banking committee chairman Tim Johnson and ranking Republican member Mike Crapo said the committee is preparing to vote on bipartisan reforms to the government-backed housing finance market.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who has for several months been investigating high-frequency trading practices, has implied wider market participants may be complicit in giving advantageous millisecond time advantages to traders.

Relief for European trading platforms has not assuaged concerns about Dodd-Frank fragmenting global swaps markets, writes Philip Alexander.

The build-up period for the eurozone bank resolution fund is still long, but the European Council will have less power to intervene in decisions. Philip Alexander reports.

WASHINGTON, DC – Staff from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) research and global financial stability departments have urged regulators to enhance crisis management as a key part of the financial reform agenda. In a working paper entitled ‘The Regulatory Responses to the Global Financial Crisis: Some Uncomfortable Questions’, StijnClaessens and Laura Kodres warned that “policy-makers have to be more explicit about the analytical, practical and data constraints” to assessing the effectiveness of new regulatory proposals.

FRANKFURT – The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) has published a first set of draft implementing technical standards (ITS) for Solvency II. This follows approval by the European Parliament in March of the Omnibus II package that will enable Solvency II to proceed.

SYDNEY – The Global Federation of Insurance Associations (GFIA) has called on the Australian presidency of the G-20 group of nations to avoid new regulations that could hamper the economic benefits of the insurance sector. The industry body noted that insurance companies covered $77bn of damage from disasters in 2012, and invested $4600bn in new premiums annually, especially in government and corporate bonds.

BASEL – A group of 11 industry bodies worldwide has jointly delivered a 73-page response to the second consultation on revisions to the Basel securitisation framework. The response, from organisations including the Global Financial Markets Association, the Institute of International Finance and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, was one of 28 received from banks, rating agencies and even the German automotive industry association. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) published the paper in December 2013, with a deadline of March 2014 for comments.