Regole di Basilea e modelli di vigilanza: quale convergenza? (Basel rules and supervisory models: What convergence?)

The globalisation process that has interested the banking sector in the last decades was significantly fostered by the three founding pillars of the Basel framework: the home country control based on consolidated supervision, risk-sensitive prudential requirements, and the core principles for effective banking supervision. The present paper analyses whether the principle of the home country control is coherent with the large discretion with which national supervisors have implemented Basel’s prudential regulation. The complexity of global banks, too big to be supervised and resolved, inevitably generates regulatory coordination failures. The increasing mistrust of host countries in the ability and willingness of the home countries authorities to protect their national interests represents a serious threat to the sustainability of bank globalisation. An effective and binding convergence on the mechanisms and processes for managing and resolving the crises of cross-border banks seems destined to remain the unsolved problem of the Basel rules.