Banking supervisors from over 120 countries today pledged deeper cooperation to fortify the stability of the financial system and to encourage improvements in banks' management of risk.

At the invitation of the Bank of Spain, more than 260 senior representatives of supervisory authorities and central banks met this week in Madrid at the Thirteenth International Conference of Banking Supervisors (ICBS). They discussed the implementation of the new international framework for bank capital requirements (Basel II) as well as current issues in accounting. The event was organised jointly by the Bank of Spain and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, a group of central banks and bank supervisory authorities in the G10 countries.