Good Practice Principles on Supervisory Colleges

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has issued for consultation a set of eight principles which aims to promote and strengthen the operation of supervisory colleges.

Comments on the report should be submitted by 30 June 2010 by e-mail (baselcommittee@bis.org) or post (Secretariat of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, Bank for International Settlements, CH-4002 Basel, Switzerland).

Supervisory colleges are an important component of effective supervisory oversight of an international banking group. The consultative document Good Practice Principles on Supervisory Colleges supplements broader guidance issued by the Basel Committee on cross-border cooperation and information-sharing by clearly outlining expectations for both home and host supervisors in relation to college objectives, governance, communication and information, as well as potential areas for collaborative work. Among other things, the principles:

• emphasise that the main aim of colleges is to enhance information exchange and cooperation among supervisors to support the effective supervision of international banking groups.
• provide guidance on the types of information to exchange and the different communication channels available. The principles also promote collaborative work among supervisors.
• acknowledge that no single college structure is suitable for all banks and that a college might have multiple or variable sub-structures. Indeed, the structure of each college should be determined by the characteristics of the banking groups being considered as well as the particular supervisory needs.
• take into account the latest developments and policy-making work in response to the financial crisis. For example, colleges should form one of the building blocks for crisis management planning. They should also facilitate the process of identifying and disseminating information relevant to macroprudential analysis.

The final version of this paper was released in October 2010.