The Central Bank of the UAE, while taking steps to implement Basel II, held its third seminar "Disclosure under Basel-II / IFRS" on 26th April 2005. The focus of the seminar was Market Discipline and Financial Reporting requirements, arising from current accounting principles formulated under International Financial Reporting Standards, and the soon to be implemented Basel II Accord.
Experts and senior representatives from KPMG, Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers shared their thoughts with the audience in respect of the issues arising. Senior management and Basel II specialists from all the major banks, (both local and foreign) operating in the UAE were also in attendance. A panel consisting of the Big audit firms, the Central Bank and senior representatives from NBAD, EBI and HSBC took questions from the floor during a healthy debate of the issues.
While concluding, Governor of The Central Bank, H.E. Sultan Bin Nasser Al-Suwaidi stated that additional similar sessions on Basel II are planned. Furthermore, the Central Bank will continue to work together with the banks to arrive at a decision on the way forward for the implementation of Basel II.
The coordinator of the event Mr. Naveed Siddiqi expressed that the session proved to be very successful in allowing an open discussion of challenges ahead for local and foreign banks in implementing Basel II.
Basel II is the new set of guidelines on banking regulation. The guidelines were announced by the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) based in Basel, Switzerland in 2004, and are set to be adopted by G10 countries in 2007/2008. Countries around the world have opted to implement the different elements of Basel II in stages that suit the particular environment in their own markets.
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© Press Release 2005
