Bank of Russia and Eurosystem workshop within cooperation program on banking supervision and internal audit

Press Release

Moscow, 29 October 2008

The Central Bank of the Russian Federation (Bank of Russia) hosted today a workshop with Russian banks on the Basel II Internal Ratings-Based Approach (IRB), with the presentations delivered by experts from the Eurosystem, which comprises the European Central Bank (ECB) and the 15 national central banks of the euro area. The workshop took place within the Eurosystem cooperation program with the Bank of Russia on banking supervision and internal audit, financed by the European Commission.

In his opening address, Dr. Alexey Simanovskiy, Director Banking Regulation and Supervision Department, member of the Board of Directors of the Bank of Russia, stressed that the workshop allowed an in-depth overview and discussion of European experiences with the IRB approach for setting banking supervisory requirements for banks. The IRB requires banks to develop their risk-management and strengthens corporate governance and banks’ robustness.

Representatives of the European Central Bank, the national central banks of France, Germany, Greece, Italy and the Netherlands, Delegation of the European Commission to Russia, the largest Russian credit institutions and the Bank of Russia took part in this international workshop. During the workshop, Eurosystem banking supervisory experts presented the main elements of the Basel II IRB approach and also answered questions regarding practice and challenges of Basel II implementation.

The workshop marks the beginning of the second phase of the Eurosystem cooperation programme with the Bank of Russia which had been launched on 20 March 2008¹ . The European Union has assigned 3 million EUR to the program. The objective of the programme is to assist the Bank of Russia in its implementation of the “International Convergence of Capital Measurement and Capital Standards” of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (Basel II)². The Eurosystem experts bring to the project their experience with the Basel II implementation.

For more information, please contact the External and Public Relations Departments mentioned above. Reproduction is permitted provided that the source is acknowledged.

The reference to the Press Service is mandatory if you intend to use this material.

29.10.2008 00.00.00