Information flows between banking supervisory authorities

The banking supervisory authorities represented on the Basel Committee, recognising the importance of practical collaboration, have developed the attached recommendations as a means of extending and supplementing the principles of the banking supervisors' Concordat of 1983 with some guidance of a more practical nature. They are designed to encourage more regular and structured collaboration between supervisors, with a view to improving the quality and completeness of the supervision of cross-border banking, while not in any way seeking to supplant the discrete responsibilities of host and parent supervisors. As with the Concordat itself, the recommendations are not designed as minimum legal requirements. Rather, they are a statement of best practice which all members have undertaken to work towards implementing, according to the means available to them. The Committee commends the recommendations as being of general validity for all those who are responsible for the supervision of banks which conduct international business and hopes that they will be progressively accepted and implemented by supervisors worldwide. The members of the Offshore Group of Banking Supervisors, as collaborators in the work, subscribe to the recommendations.