The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision issued final guidance on Tuesday on the application of its basic principles to regulating financial services institutions that are in the business of serving customers who are either unserved, or underserved, by the traditional financial services sector.
“The problem of financially unserved and underserved sectors of society is a global issue,” the Basel Committee notes in its guidance, adding that its new guidance aims to build on past work to provide additional supervisory guidance in this area as well as to existing approaches to regulating microfinance and other efforts to improve financial inclusion.
“Many of the unserved and underserved customers reside in countries that are not [Basel Committee] members,” the Basel Committee says, noting that, as a result, the guidance is intended to be useful to both jurisdictions that are part of the Basel Committee and those that aren’t.
This includes regulators in jurisdictions that are striving to comply with the Basel principles, and who may implement the guidance gradually over time.
The Basel Committee published a draft version of the guidance in December 2015.