The G20 summit in Pittsburgh, at which the Netherlands was an observer, made ‘huge progress’ on regulating the global banking industry, finance minister Wouter Bos told the NRC.

‘We are not there yet, but we have made huge progress on regulation,’ Bos was quoted as saying. ‘Financial service sector authorities will have more means at their disposal, the number of parties to be supervised has been expanded and international cooperation has improved.’
The summit of the world’s biggest economies agreed to strengthen the rules on the capital reserves banks have to hold and made tentative steps towards reducing banking bonuses.
‘We commit to developing by end-2010 internationally agreed rules to improve both the quantity and quality of bank capital and to discourage excessive [borrowing],’ the closing statement said.
According to the BBC, the summit failed to agree a cap on bonuses but said ‘bonus payments should not be guaranteed for many years, should be deferred in part, and should not exceed a percentage of the bank’s revenue’.

For the BBC reports on the summit, click here