Below the radar

The upcoming Basel II capital Accord’s impact on the global banking industry is expected to be profound, and hardly painless. The Accord’s ramifications for the investment and hedge fund management sectors, while not nearly as obvious,could contribute along with other regulations to a much wider long-term impact in terms of technology and operational resilience. By Stewart Eisenhart

Of all the current and pending regulatory mandates buy-side and hedge fund managers are grappling with these days, the pending Basel II capital adequacy Accord seems much less pressing a concern compared with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) hedge fund registration requirements, the anti-money laundering provisions of the USA Patriot Act and the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate governance law. On the face of it, the Basel Accord primarily targets the banking sector, and will