Consistency issues must be resolved before Basel II implementation, says Bies

Major US banks have consistency problems that must be resolved before the implementation of Basel II, according to Susan Schmidt Bies, governor of the Federal Reserve Board and chair of the Banking Regulatory and Supervisory Committee.

Speaking on a Panel on accounting sponsored by the International Association of Financial Engineers in New York, Bies said the Fed's studies of the use of internal models for determining capital needs, as required by the Basel II banking Accord, suggested more work was needed to get risk management models approved for Basel II.

"[We feel] no bank in the US today is up to the standard of reliability of the models that as a regulator I would feel comfortable saying, 'Yes, I will go by