Wellink named as new chairman of Basel committee

Netherlands Bank president Nout Wellink will succeed Jaime Caruana as chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.

The Bank for International Settlements said today that Wellink will take over when Caruana, also the governor of the Bank of Spain, steps down from both roles on July 1 this year.

Wellink is set to spend three years in the post. While Caruana's term as chairman included the completion of the Basel II capital adequacy framework, he advised his successor in a recent interview published in the May edition of Risk (Another Basel chapter closes) to hold off from further changes to regulation. "The committee should avoid proposing major regulatory changes until the implementation challenges of Basel II are largely dealt with," Caruana said.

Wellink, instead, will oversee Basel II's implementation in Europe in 2007, and in the US a year later. He was chairman of the BIS board from 2002 until January this year, when he stepped down in favour of Swiss National Bank chairman Jean-Pierre Roth.