62. The Basle Committee recommends that banks, in regular financial reporting and other public disclosures provide timely information which facilitates market participants' assessment of banks. It has identified the following six broad categories of information, each of which should be addressed in clear terms and appropriate detail to help achieve a satisfactory level of bank transparency:
    • financial performance;
    • financial position (including capital, solvency and liquidity);
    • risk management strategies and practices;
    • risk exposures (including credit risk, market risk, liquidity risk, and operational, legal and other risks);
    • accounting policies; and
    • basic business, management and corporate governance information.

63. The scope and content of information provided and the level of disaggregation and detail should be commensurate with the size and nature of a bank's operations. Further, the methods of measurement will depend on applicable accounting standards.

64. The task of assessing banks is also an integral part of prudential supervision, and therefore the Basle Committee encourages supervisors to have access to adequate and timely information with respect to the six areas identified above. Supervisors may want to obtain some of the information in more detail than is normally provided for financial reporting purposes. In countries with less developed financial markets, supervisors may need to establish a more comprehensive supervisory reporting system covering these six broad categories of information to compensate for inadequacies in publicly disclosed information.

65. These recommendations are at a very general level. Within each broad area, significant detail in disclosures may be required, depending in part on the institution's activities. The Basle Committee may offer more specific guidance in some of these areas in the future. As previously mentioned, the Basle Committee, jointly with the Technical Committee of IOSCO, has already issued more detailed disclosure recommendations for the trading and derivatives activities of large banks and securities firms.

(a) Financial performance

(b) Financial position (including capital, solvency and liquidity)

(c) Risk management strategies and practices

(d) Risk exposures

(e) Accounting policies

(f) Basic business, management and corporate governance information