Twelfth International Conference of Banking Supervisors

Representatives of about 150 banking supervisory authorities from nearly 120 countries met in Cape Town on 18 and 19 September 2002. They were participating in the 12th International Conference of Banking Supervisors (ICBS) held at the invitation of the South African Reserve Bank.

The conference was organised jointly by the South African Reserve Bank and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. Mr Tito Mboweni, Governor of the South African Reserve Bank, opened the conference. The working sessions were chaired by Mr William J McDonough, Chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Ms Gill Marcus, Deputy Governor of the South African Reserve Bank. Mr McDonough also delivered the keynote speech. During the conference, Mr Stanley Fischer, Vice Chairman of Citigroup and former First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, delivered the William Taylor Memorial Lecture. The South African Minister of Finance, Mr Trevor Manuel, delivered a dinner address.

The two main themes of the conference were the Review of the Basel Capital Accord and How to create a stable financial environment in emerging market economies. Panel sessions on these subjects were chaired by Mr Claes Norgren, Chairman of the Basel Committee Task Force on the Future of Capital Regulation and Director General of Finansinspektionen (Sweden), and Mr Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank. In addition, two special panel sessions took place on Customer due diligence and terrorist financing, chaired by Mr Jochen Sanio, President of the Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht (BAFin) and the current President of the Financial Action Task Force, and Loan accounting, chaired by Mr Arnold Schilder, Executive Director of the Netherlands Bank. At the close of the customer due diligence session, participants resolved to issue a separate press communiqué declaring their commitment to adopt the standards set out in the Basel Committee's 2001 paper Customer due diligence for banks.

The ICBS, held at two-yearly intervals since 1979, is designed to promote cooperation among national authorities in the supervision of international banking and to enable senior representatives of supervisory authorities from a large number of countries to exchange views on a range of current issues of common concern. The next ICBS is to take place in 2004 in Madrid, Spain, at the invitation of the Bank of Spain. Attached is the full programme for the 12th International Conference of Banking Supervisors.

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME