BASEL III IMPLEMENTATION: PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES FOR KAZAKHSTAN BANKING SYSTEM

An increasing interdependence of countries and regions leads to the expansion of international financial relations, increasing the volume of transactions in the financial markets. Financial globalization found the most significant manifestation in the development of the banking sector, giving a significant boost to international cooperation of banks and deeper interaction of the world economy.

On the other hand, the global financial crisis of 2007-2009 led to a substantial transformation of the international banks. Many banks have suffered significant losses, others were eliminated. The banking sector of the Republic of Kazakhstan was not an exception.

Prudential regulations adopted by the National Bank of the Republic of Kazakhstan and Agency of Republic Kazakhstan on Regulation and Supervision of Financial Market and Financial Organizations were not effective enough and did not have the proper security stability of the banking system during the global financial crisis. Performing them in full doesn’t make the situation in the banking sector improve. The problem of poor asset quality, as well as a wide gap between assets and liabilities at amounts and terms that have a negative impact on the profitability and stability of the banking sector still remains. Many banks, which formally fulfilled all standards, faced with a lack of liquidity and equity.

As a result of the events, the global crisis has forced the regulatory and supervisory authorities of the country to strengthen the control over banking, tighten the requirements for the calculation of and compliance with prudential standards and make adjustments to the legislation.

Basel Committee on Banking Supervision also concentrated on solving above mentioned situation, which adopted the third Basel Accord — Basel III in November 2010 in Seoul at the summit of «Big Twenty».

Let us start the ball rolling by touching the matter what are the concept and functions of the Basel Committee.

Committee on Banking Supervision of the Bank for international Settlements was founded in Basel (Switzerland) in 1974 by the presidents of the central banks of the «Group of Ten» (G10). Committee members are senior representatives of central banks and financial regulators in countries such as Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Spain, Italy, Canada, China, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the USA, Singapore, Turkey, France, Sweden, Switzerland, South Africa, South Korea and Japan. [1]

The main task of the Committee is the introduction of uniform standards in the field of banking regulation. The Committee shall develop guidelines and recommendations for regulatory authorities of the member states. These recommendations are not binding for execution. Development of guidelines and recommendations carried out in cooperation with banks and regulatory authorities around the world, and they are used not only in the member states of the Committee, so for example, work on implementation of recommendations of the «Basel II» conducted in more than 100 countries.

The main documents of the Basel Committee are:

1. Basic principles of effective supervision (1997, revised 2006).
2. Basel-I (introduced in 1988), according to which the bank’s capital for regulatory purposes should be divided into two categories — the capital of the first and second level, and all the bank’s assets for regulatory purposes are divided into 5 groups according to the degree of risk.
3. Basel II (adopted on 26 June 2004). Basel II approach is based on three pillars: minimum capital requirements (Basel base I), the procedures of supervision and market discipline. [2]
4. Basel III (adopted in December 2010), the standards of which is scheduled to be from 2013 to 2019. The main changes of Basel III, compared with Basel II, are included in the calculation of capital banks in prudential capital requirements in prudential liquidity requirements. [3]

In other words, Basel III is a response to the global financial crisis of 2007-2009 year. Analyzing its causes, the experts isolated the failures of prudential regulation of financial intermediaries as one of the main reasons. In the framework of deepening of financial globalization functioning and regulation of financial intermediaries no longer meet modern requirements.

Basel III has a wider scope of measures on micro-prudential level (individual bank risk) [4]:

1. A) Strengthening the capital base;
2. B) Increased requirements for risk coverage;
3. B) Introduction of leverage ratio (leverage ratio);
4. D) The introduction of obligations to cover short-term and long-term financing’

And macro-prudential level (risks in the banking sector) [5]:

1. A) Introduction of countercyclical capital buffers and buffer capital preservation;
2. B) Introduction of debt ratios.

Currently, eleven jurisdictions have announced the entry into force of Basel III banking rules from January 1, 2013. These include: Australia, Hong Kong, India, Canada, China, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Thailand, Switzerland, South Africa, Japan. National Bank of our republic has postponed the implementation of «Basel III» to January 1, 2015. Earlier, the National Bank of Kazakhstan intended to implement «Basel III» in 2013. Banks asked for a postponement on the grounds that the Kazakh regulator aheads on this issue the European countries and the United States.

 Governor of the National Bank of Kazakhstan Kairat Kelimbetov in one of his interviews to the media said that our second-tier banks generally are ready for the introduction of measures in 2015. Also all relevant laws and regulations would be discussed and adopted by 1^st July, 2014.

Of course, it is difficult to accurately answer whether all of the above recommendations of Basel III would be allowed to increase the stability of the banking system. In this case, we are going to mention several disadvantages of implementation measures.

Firstly, today, many experts agree that the standards still require significant improvements and the banks themselves have to choose and change their business models to improve the quality of their loan portfolios and the restructuring of their balance sheets before entering the international standards. This will require a lot of time and cost, as well as qualified personnel for the effective implementation and quality standards. [6]

Secondly, the kazakh banks may soon take up to 1 trillion dollars in equity infusions. Where they take such financial resources in a very slow growth of the world economy is unknown.

Thirdly, the capital increase means that the increase in the cost of capital. The banks will have to increase their profit doubled. And to increase the profits of banks will be forced to raise interest rates on loans. [3]

Fourth, the banking system is likely waiting for a series of mergers and acquisitions. A merger would reduce the number of banks, competition in the banking sector and the stability of the system (because the smaller players, the less stable the whole system). [7]

Today Kazakhstan banking system is still only formally ready to comply with international requirements. Just the introduction of new requirements will reduce the profitability of banking operations, which adversely affect the performance of bank liquidity. Implementation of Basel III in Kazakhstan, in particular with regard to liquidity recommend that our country should wait for a certain period until the standards are finalized and improved. After all, the Basel Committee has identified six years for approbation, supervision, monitoring and adjustment of these standards, which will have to go in the complete form and further developed by 2019. By this time, the Kazakh banking system will be able to improve their financial situation and commercial banks will be willing to accept international standards at the appropriate level.

Reference list:

1. Коваленко О. Г. Экономическое содержание активных операций и их значение в банковской деятельности//Проблемы современной экономики (II)/Международная научная конференция/Челябинск, 2012. -с. 87–93
2. Воловник А. Д., Зияддулаев Н. С., Кибардина Ю. С. Базель- III: испытание надёжности банковской системы России в условиях глобальной конкуренции // Экономика. –2011. — № 3 (39). — С. 40–49
3. Макшанова Т. В. Рынок структурированных финансовых продуктов в России: современный этап и перспективы развития/ Т. В. Макшанова// Молодой ученый. -2013.-№ 3. -С. 258–262.
4. Stefan Walter on Basel III, RWAs, ‘anti-American’ rules and CVA.
5. European Central Bank. Strengthening Macro and Micro – Prudential Supervision.
6. Walter W. Eubanks, The Status of the Basel III Capital Adequacy Accord, Congressional Research Service, Diane Publishing Co, 2010.
7. Moorad Choudhry, An Introduction to Banking: Liquidity Risk and Asset-Liability Management, Wiley, 2011.[schema type=»book» name=»BASEL III IMPLEMENTATION: PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES FOR KAZAKHSTAN BANKING SYSTEM» author=»Sadibekova Aidana, Sairambaeva Zhuldyz» publisher=»БАСАРАНОВИЧ ЕКАТЕРИНА» pubdate=»2017-04-19″ edition=»ЕВРАЗИЙСКИЙ СОЮЗ УЧЕНЫХ_ 30.04.2015_04(13)» ebook=»yes» ]