Basel II und seine Bedeutung für Kleinstaaten

Zusammenfassung

This paper deals with the consequences of banking regulation for banks and regulators in micro states. Up to now this topic had not been ana-lyzed in the literature.

Banks in micro states are very often specialized banking institutions, dominantly present in the asset management market and active in the off-shore-business. Hence their balance sheet show high relations in interbank loans, but low relations for loans to corporate and private clients.

The new banking regulation proposal called Basel II will cause a lot of changes in equity claims by the regulators. Equity claims are much more influenced by probability of default than the current Basel Accord.

As the results of Quantitative Impact Study 2.5 show, banking institu-tions have to be prepared for much higher equity claims in loans to sov-ereigns and banks, but may count with much lower equity claims for loans to corporations and private clients. Big international banking insti-tutions will therefore expect lower equity claims caused by credit risk, which will be compensated by the new equity claim caused by opera-tional risks.

Banking institutions in micro states cannot expect such a compensation of opposed effects. They have to hold new equity for operational risks, but there is no relief in equity for credit risks, as they show a concentration in interbank credit relations and underdeveloped portfolios in consumer and corporate loans.