Time management concept. Composition with documents, stationary and alarm clock on table
123RF

Federal banking regulators are pushing back implementation of the final Basel III capital requirements by an extra year.

The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) announced that planned revisions to banks’ capital rules to account for operational risk, which were initially slated to take effect in the first quarter of 2021, won’t be implemented until Q1 of the following year.

OSFI said it decided to push back the implementation to 2022 to coincide with the adoption of new credit risk and leverage ratio requirements.

“This re-alignment provides several benefits including additional time to clarify reporting instructions with the objective of ensuring a consistent interpretation of the revised requirements,” OSFI said.

The new deadline will also sync with the timing of new capital and liquidity requirements for small and medium-sized banks, it said.

OSFI noted that it will undertake further consultations on the implementation of the final Basel III reforms in late spring.

Those consultations will spell out the regulator’s expectations for banks’ operational risk capital.