Criteria for selection

Especially in the early years of the BCBS, members were free to submit papers on any relevant topic that they felt might be germane to the BCBS’ discussions. Numerous papers were submitted and topics raised which were considered briefly, or not at all. So how can one classify the set of topics which did engage the attention of the BCBS, and separate these from those that did not?

The main procedure here for making such a separation is to rely on the published reports of the BCBS on International Developments in Banking Supervision. These record what the BCBS saw as the main highlights of its own work since the previous report. There was a trial run in producing such a report, which was undertaken in 1981 (BS/81/42) and which covered the work of the BCBS in 1980; this was for internal (BCBS) consumption only; it was neither shown to the Governors, nor published. I have, however, used this as a reliable guide, in exactly the same way as later published reports. When one says ‘published’, that was during this period (up until the end of 1997) only to a limited circle of other supervisors, such commercial banks as such supervisors chose to pass the paper onto, and to a small, selected set of professional and interested commentators and journalists. These reports have, however, subsequently been made fully available. Reports 1 to 5, published in 1982–6 relating to the individual years 1980–85, were annual. As already noted in Chapter 6, 1987 was a year of great pressure for the BCBS. The opportunity was taken then to defer publishing a report until 1988 (Report 6) covering the two years 1986/87. Thereafter, at least until after the time period covered here, all the reports came out at two-year intervals, covering the activities of the BCBS during the previous two-year period. So the final report relevant to this exercise is Report 11, issued in 1998 covering BCBS activities in 1996/97.