International Regulation and Supervision: A Solution to Bank Failure in Latin America?

During these last two decades, Latin American countries have experienced a large number of banking crises which have affected their whole economy. These crises have prompted a renewed interest in the regulation and supervision of financial and banking systems within multilateral financial institutions. This article gives a non exhaustive account of the factors which have lead to banking crises in Latin America. Macroeconomic instability, the excessive banks risk taking, and the weakness of the regulatory framework are the main sources of banking failures. The existing international agreements – the Basel Accords – to which more and more emerging countries subscribe, are not adapted enough to these countries economic and financial structures. However, the adoption of these Accords by Latin American countries is a move towards a greater supervision of banking systems and a first step towards a better prevention of banking crises. Durante estas dos ultimas decadas, los paises latinoamericanos han padecido numerosas crisis bancarias que afectaron sus economias en general. Estas crisis relanzaron en el seno de las instituciones financieras internacionales discusiones en torno a la regulacion y vigilancia de los sistemas bancarios en America latina. Este articulo ofrece un recuento no exhaustive de los factores que intervinieron en las crisis bancarias de America Latina. La inestabilidad macroeconomica, el excesivo riesgo tomado por los bancos y los debilidades de la reglementacion explican dichas crisis. Los acuerdos internacionales existentes – Acuerdos de Basilea – a los cuales se adhieren cada vez mas los paises emergentes, no estan necesariamente adaptados a su estructura economica y financiera. No obstante, la adopcion de estos acuerdos por parte de los paises latinoamericanos constituye un paso en la direcion de una mayor vigilancia de los sistemas bancarios y de una major prevencion de las crisis bancarias.