The recent financial crisis not only exposed many deficiencies in the financial sectors around the world, but threatened the very foundations of the global economy. Authorities in the US, Europe and Asia pledged to undertake a serious overhaul of their financial regulation systems and to cooperate better on the international level to ensure more effective supervision of cross-border operations and internationally active financial institutions.

With the Dodd-Frank legislation in the US, the financial regulation reform package agreed in Europe, and most recently the "Basel III" accord setting tougher global rules on capital requirements for financial institutions, the new regulatory architecture is now taking shape. The Seminar session in March will bring together regulators, bankers, economists, lawyers and other experts from different continents to compare notes on the implications of these reforms and to analyze and compare the decisions that have been made, assessing from different perspectives how far old problems have been solved and/or potential new ones created.

Participants will discuss how banks should react to the new regulatory framework, what it means for them, and how business is now being done in international financial markets. They will also address the issue of convergence (or non-convergence) between regulations in Europe, the US, and Asia; the role played by the G-20 and other institutions in creating effective global regulatory responses; and the challenges to international cooperation in the years ahead.

Salzburg Global Seminar is grateful to the Oesterreichische Nationalbank for their support of this session.