Doha, Qatar, Thursday, 14 December 2023

The QFC Regulatory Authority (“Regulatory Authority”) has today issued an extensive update to the Banking Business Prudential Rules 2014 (“BANK”).

The amendments to BANK are set out in the Banking Business Prudential (Amendment) Rules 2023 and have been developed to achieve appropriate alignment with the Basel Framework set out in the standards of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (“BCBS”). In that connection, the Regulatory Authority is updating the BANK Rules in the following key prudential areas:

a) changes to the credit risk management framework;

b) capital charge framework for counterparty credit risk (“CCR”);

c) guidance to categorise problem assets and provisioning;

d) equity investments in investment funds;

e) the large exposures framework; and

f) the allocation of instruments to the banking book and trading book.

The updated BANK Rules will commence on 1 July 2024. A consolidated version of the BANK Rules will be published on the Regulatory Authority’s website legislation page in due course. A communication announcing the publication of the consolidated BANK Rules will follow thereafter.

Please click here to access the Banking Business Prudential (Amendment) Rules 2023.