Basel II op risk charge will help tackle concerns, says McDonough

NEW YORK - Banking supervisors believe that a separate capital charge for operational risk under the Basel II capital rules will bolster efforts to find better ways of addressing concern about the operational hazards faced by banks, the world's chief international banking regulator said in mid-October.

That’s despite the fact that operational risk cannot be quantified with the same accuracy as credit or market risk, William McDonough, chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, said in a New York speech on promoting financial resilience.

McDonough’s remarks to the Cato Institute’s annual monetary conference reiterated the themes of the overview of progress with the complex Basel II accord given by the Basel Committee, the architect of Basel II, when it issued its QIS 3 survey