Basel Committee Finalizes Policy Suggesting 2% Bitcoin Exposure Cap For Banks

1 year ago

The BIS’ Basel Committee introduced a finalized connection for limits to the magnitude of Tier 1 superior banks tin clasp successful bitcoin.

The BIS’ Basel Committee introduced a finalized connection for limits to the magnitude of Tier 1 superior banks tin clasp successful bitcoin.

The Bank for International Settlements' (BIS) Basel Committee connected Banking Supervision has finalized a proposed policy that would spot a 2% bounds connected banks' Tier 1 superior held successful bitcoin. This comes with an endorsement from the Group of Central Bank Governors and Heads of Supervision (GHOS), the oversight assemblage of the Basel Committee, which is the “primary planetary modular setter for the prudential regularisation of banks.

Investopedia defines Tier 1 capital arsenic “the halfway superior held successful a bank's reserves [that] is utilized to money concern activities for the bank's clients. It includes communal stock, arsenic good arsenic disclosed reserves and definite different assets.”

The argumentation includes bitcoin successful its explanation of Group 2 crypto assets, saying that “In summation to immoderate tokenised accepted assets and stablecoins that neglect the classification conditions, Group 2 includes each unbacked cryptoassets.” It aboriginal describes that “a bank’s full vulnerability to Group 2 cryptoassets should not mostly beryllium higher than 1% of the bank’s Tier 1 superior and indispensable not transcend 2% of the bank’s Tier 1 capital.”

The BIS had antecedently considered a policy of 1% for planetary banks. In turn, the banks requested a 5% reserve limit. This 2% appears to beryllium a compromise betwixt the two. According to data from 2020, if applied to each banks successful the world, who collectively custody astir $180 trillion, this would magnitude to a bounds of $3.6 trillion successful bitcoin held by specified entities.

Tiff Macklem, Chair of the GHOS, stated that “Today's endorsement by the GHOS marks an important milestone successful processing a planetary regulatory baseline for mitigating risks to banks from cryptoassets. It is important to proceed to show bank-related developments successful cryptoasset markets. We stay acceptable to enactment further if necessary.”

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