BUENOS AIRES – Many Latin American countries still lag in accomplishing even the simplest versions of the Basel II bank safety rules with significant preparatory work either not yet started or at a highly preliminary stage, according to credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s.

LONDON – Global regulators should ease punitively high statistical constraints to encourage banks to use advanced approaches to measuring operational risk and to use insurance as a risk mitigant under the Basel II rules, according to insurance industry professional Shirley Beglinger.

MUMBAI – Special efforts may be needed to maintain the flow of credit to small- and medium-size Indian firms because of the low penetration by the credit-rating agencies whose assessments of borrower creditworthiness will play a key role in the Basel II bank safety rules, according to a top Indian central banker.

BASEL – Top US banking regulator John Dugan was appointed chairman in September of the Joint Forum of global banking, insurance and investment market supervisors in succession to Dutch central banker Dirk Witteveen.

Early indications suggest positive results from the latest impact study for Europe’s Solvency II insurance project. Supervision question remains a very sensitive issue

The priority given to Solvency II by the Committee of European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Supervisors (CEIOPS) is reflected in the appointment of Carlos Montalvo, from Spain’s insurance and pensions fund regulatory agency, as the Committee’s new secretary general, CEIOPS said in September.

Leading US insurers believe recent proposals by global insurance standard setters for measuring the value of insurance contracts may further decrease comparability between international and US accounting rules.

Europe’s regulators want business insurance to become more efficient. Block exemption privileges are in the firing-line

Postmortems of recent financial storm now underway. Implications for regulation being mulled. Several reports due by mid-2008 By Melvyn Westlake

On both sides of Atlantic investigations have been launched into role of rating agencies in recent turmoil. Changes seem certain By Melvyn Westlake