The Bank of Mauritius, which is the central bank of Mauritius, hosted a conference on the Basel III reform from 31 May to 2 June 2023. On each of the three days, the conference was attended by around 60 people working in banking supervision and at credit institutions in Mauritius. Two Bundesbank experts on banking supervision were in charge of holding the conference in Mauritius. 

The central bank governor of the Bank of Mauritius, Mr. Harvesh Kumar Seegolam, gave the opening speech before the banks’ CEOs and CROs in which he highlighted how important the implementation of Basel III was for Mauritius as a financial centre.

Karin Sagner-Kaiser, senior advisor for banking supervision from the Centre for International Central Bank Dialogue (CIC), and Prof. Andreas Igl, lecturer at the Bundesbank’s University of Applied Sciences (HDB), launched the technical part of the conference by providing an overview of the Basel III reform. Passed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision in 2017, the reform focuses on revised calculation methods for determining commercial banks’ capital requirements.

As the conference progressed, the two experts directed their presentations at a more specialist audience. Here, too, the main focus lay on the new standardised approaches for credit, market and operational risk. The agenda also covered Pillar 2 of the Basel Framework, i.e. the Supervisory Review Process, and regulations for national systemically important financial institutions.

Looking back on three intensive conference days, all participants agreed on how helpful the event had been for their impending task of implementing the Basel III reforms. The two central banks made plans to work together on other topics in the future. 

Text: Karin Sagner-Kaiser