Handbook for Regulatory Consistency Assessment Programme (RCAP) jurisdictional assessments published by the Basel Committee

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has today published the Handbook for Jurisdictional Assessments, which describes the guidance, principles and processes for assessing compliance with Basel standards under the Regulatory Consistency Assessment Programme (RCAP). The Committee believes that full and consistent implementation of its standards will strengthen the resilience of the banking system, improve market confidence in regulatory ratios and promote a level playing field.

The RCAP assesses the consistency and completeness of a jurisdiction's capital and liquidity rules against the globally agreed Basel standards and describes the significance of any deviations. The programme is sufficiently general to accommodate differences in structural and institutional factors across jurisdictions. The RCAP Handbook presents a general framework as well as specific processes and procedures for assessing a jurisdiction's regulatory framework for (i) risk-based capital standards, (ii) the Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) and (iii) global systemically important banks (G-SIBs). The Committee has gained valuable experience since it began conducting jurisdictional assessments in 2012 that has led to enhancements to the RCAP methodology set out in the Handbook.

The Basel Committee also published today RCAP Questionnaires that cover, in addition to the risk-based capital standards, LCR and the Revised Pillar 3 disclosure requirements. These self-assessments of a jurisdiction's rules are the starting point for an RCAP. The questionnaires support Basel Committee member jurisdictions, and other regulators and supervisors, to check and improve the alignment of their domestic regulations with the corresponding Basel standards.

The Committee will continue to update the Handbook to reflect further refinements to the RCAP.