On June 28th, The Basel Committee came out with two papers that recommend strengthening the regulatory oversight of counterparty credit swaps to decrease the alleged risk of derivative transactions.

The first paper improves upon the interim credit assessment suggestions that the Basel Committee made with the Current Exposure Method (CEM) and the Standardised Method. The new credit risk assessment of counterparties in derivative trading fine-tune upon the CEM and the Standardised Method by creating separate risk exposure plans for margined and unmargined trades.

The second paper focuses on the capital risk of banks when working with central counterparties (CCPs). As is, CCPs are utilized to create stability in the markets by clearing and settling trades through risk and obligation assessment as well as supervising the final swap. The new proposal from the Basel Committee includes a recommendation that all trades are sufficiently well capitalized, as well as suggestions to conserve positive incentives for banks to utilize central clearinghouses.

The Basel Committee was established in 1974 by a group of nations concerned about regulatory inconsistencies between countries. Many of the regulatory policies that it wanted to recommend since the financial crisis of 2008 were supposed to be finalized in 2o12, but have been delayed due to complications.

The two papers published are currently open for public comment until the end of September, 2013.