Home-host heads for Asia

SINGAPORE – Although the home-host debate has not yet raged in Asia as it has elsewhere, this will change over the next 18 months as regulators in the region begin to publish their policy papers, said Jacob Gyntelberg, a senior economist at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel. He was speaking at the International Swaps and Derivatives Association's annual conference in Singapore in mid-March.

"Home-host issues are going to be much more important over a longer time horizon than they are now," said Gyntelberg. "This is a hot topic and it is not easily resolved." Gyntelberg pointed out that because of the staggered deadlines in the Asia-Pacific region, foreign banks will have a difficult time co-ordinating implementation with their head offices, and for a period will have to perform two sets of calculations. While Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Singapore are all implementing