The Role of Capital in Optimal Banking Supervision and Regulation

It is my pleasure to join President McDonough and our colleaguesfrom the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England inhosting this timely conference. Capital, of course, is a topicof never-ending importance to bankers and their counterparties,not to mention the regulators and central bankerswhose job it is to oversee the stability of the financial system.Moreover, this conference comes at a most critical andopportune time. As you are aware, the current structure ofregulatory bank capital standards is under the most intensescrutiny since the deliberations leading to the watershedBasle Accord of 1988 and the Federal Deposit InsuranceCorporation Improvement Act of 1991.[...]