The central bank governors and heads of supervision that oversee the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision agreed to a very substantial softening of prospective global liquidity standards. This development is bullish for the international banks and for the global economy and markets.

The revised standards include a very welcome four-year delay in the date when they are to be fully enforced, moving it to 2019.

The most important, and also somewhat controversial, revisions concern the definition of "high-quality liquid assets" that banks will be required to hold as a buffer against a future crisis.  The definition had been very tightly drawn, to include only government bonds, cash, and central bank reserves.

Now it is much broader, including also corporate bonds rated A+ to as low as BBB-, AA-rated residential mortgage-backed securities, and even certain equities.

Softening the standards should ease the current problem, particularly apparent in Europe, of banks seeking to amass liquidity to meet the anticipated future regulations to the detriment of lending to businesses and consumers.

HGW

"Positive contagion"...got to be laughter across Europe..

Although to be fair to this banking bureaucrat, he is trying to inject life into a corpse riddled with excessive debt and rotting in a sea of political socialist idiot behaviour going back decades.

Expect more 'happy talk'....because there can be nothing else....you are expected to feel positive and if we all feel positive then the debts and related shite will positively go away....not

If you put your money from NZ in a Swiss Bank ...have you :

1) Now is money a medium of trade ?..........NO

2) Have you imported any goods  ?..........NO

3) Now buy a house in Switzerland , have you imported anything ?.........NO

I do not believe everything I hear , we are being decieved every day !