The Croatian National Bank is a host of the New Basel Capital Accord international workshop, which started today and will continue until the end of the week. The workshop is dedicated to the introduction and discussion of the new regulation proposals related to the three pillars: minimum capital requirements, supervisory review and market discipline in the banking sector. The workshop is organized in cooperation with the Financial Stability Institute of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and it has gathered the representatives of central banks or other bank supervisory institutions from Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Montenegro, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Croatia.

Jean-Philippe Svoronos and Laurent Le Moel from the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision will give the introductory presentations for the workshop participants on the reasons, objectives and framework for issuing the new standards, on risk management, internal and external risk assessment and their implication, standard and internal risk assessment models, proposals for the new solutions to operational risks, as well as credit risk mitigation and diversification techniques.

The actions and experience of the Spanish central bank concerning dynamic provisioning shall be presented by the head of its financial stability department Jesus Saurina. The participants of several important regional commercial banks (Intesa SpA, Zagrebačka and Privredna banka) shall present their views and preparation for the application of the so-called Basel II. During the five-day work, the banking supervision representatives from the Central and East European countries will have an opportunity to present and discuss their preparation and possible difficulties in the implementation of the proposed new solutions, which are to take effect by year-end 2006.