Back to the drawing board for trading book rules

The Basel Committee is preparing to conduct a fundamental review of its trading book rules in 2011, even before a package of changes to the market risk framework has come into force. What are regulators trying to achieve and how is the industry responding? Joel Clark reports

Given the considerable political pressure on the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision to complete the Basel III reform package by the end of the year, it was little surprise when a detailed update to the Group of 20 (G-20) leading economies on October 19 focused mainly on the progress of the capital and liquidity reforms. But there was more. Buried deep inside the 16-page report was the committee's most substantive statement yet about a major stream of work that looks set to consume regulators