August 1, 2001
Latin American banking authorities continue to sharpen their regulatory requirements and raise the region's banking system rules up to international standards. The following countries amended their prudential regulations in the last year.
ArgentinaCentral Bank of Argentina
Since August 1995, Argentina's system of bank reserve requirements has been replaced with a system of liquidity requirements applied to the monthly average of deposits and other liabilities. Beginning in May 2000, liquidity requirements were applied to foreign non-trade credit lines granted by head offices or foreign banks to branches or subsidiaries in Argentina. One kind of computable asset to comply with these requirements is stand-by letters of credit with certain characteristics. The term of these letters of credit was extended to 360 days from 180 days. Moreover, there is now an additional requirement that these funds must be disbursed if